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Hi everyone~ If you remember from previous emails, I went on a GF diet last year after approximately 30 years of 'stomach aches' which were eventually dubbed as IBS.  I had a gastroscopy in April and rec'd the results yesterday.  Any comments/suggestions/ideas would be appreciated!
   
  I DO realize that going GF before testing makes testing unreliable or useless - but after being told that it was IBS and having no other solutions, I had nothing to lose (except the diarahea/constipation & stomach aches which kept me feeling lousy most of the time).
   
  I am no longer anemic, I hardly bruise any more, I have grown hair back on my head, I don't sleep as much now - and have more energy.    My eczema is about 80-90% better.  
   
  Below is a note that I sent to friends & family who were inquiring about my testing results status. 
   
  Thanks! Dawn
   
  June 12, 2006
   
  Endoscopy/gastroscopy and gluten testing results:
   
  (1)   My intestines are in very good condition – we even saw the photos! (no, I didn’t get copies for my scrapbooks J ). My specialist did many biopsies and he is very confident that the tissue is healthy and cancer-free.  This means that either I don’t have celiac or that I have celiac that has healed (healing occurs usually within 6 months of being on a gluten-free diet – I’m almost at 1 year now).  Unfortunately we don’t know which situation is the correct one.
   
  (2)   My blood work shows that I have “selective IgA deficiency” – “There is a genetically determined condition call selective IgA deficiency that occurs in about 0.2 percent of the population and in about 3% of patients with celiac disease.  These people do not make IgA antibodies, whether or not they have celiac disease.  Since most of the highly specific and sensitive blood tests for celiac disease measure IgA, the tests are measuring a class of antibody that some people cannot ever make.”  This means that my blood work for celiac would not show celiac anyway and therefore any future testing would have to be via endoscopy/gastroscopy. 
   
  (3)   For definitive testing I could go on a ‘gluten-challenge’.   This means that I would have to eat gluten for at least 3 months and then go for another endoscopy/gastroscopy and biopsies.  Right now I am not willing to try this option simply because I feel good now and I would get quite sick with gluten in my system again (this is why going on a gluten-free diet before celiac testing is not recommended – when you eliminate gluten from your diet, you will react more severely when you reintroduce it to your system).  
   
  (4)   The specialist gave me a requisition form for “DQ2 and DQ8” blood testing.  This is a new test which, if it is available in Canada (doc wasn’t sure if it was here yet) would tell us if I have the gene that would make it even possible for me to have celiac.  If I do not have this gene, then celiac would be an impossibility for me and our future generations via me. We went for blood testing yesterday but the lab was closed already.  If the test is not available yet, I will keep the requisition form for the future & keep trying.
   
  (5)   The importance for me to have a positive or negative diagnosis of celiac is that celiac is a genetic disorder that manifests itself in many ways, often not intestinally (it is often symptomless). It often shows up as malignancies and other auto-immune disorders later on in life, after the damage has been done.  Therefore my children/family members could have it without knowing it and without knowing that it is causing irreparable damage to their bodies.  Since there is a family history of various intestional/bowel ‘problems’ in my family, and since I have responded so well to a gluten-free diet, this is a very important investigation.
   
   
   
   
   
   


  Dawn - Southern Ontario
  Canada


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