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After toughing out the gluten challenge for a month, I finally had my
biopsy last Tuesday. Yesterday, I got the result: eosinophilic
gastroenteritis. My dr is quite definite that the biopsy findings are
quite distinct; I think the results came out of left field for him as
much as for me. (I read my chart while I waited for the procedure:
while he thought celiac was a possibility, his front-runner suspects
were, I gathered, polyps of the colon or pancreatic disease.)

He is not interested in doing any blood work for CD at this point,
just an eosinophil count and (ugh) a colonoscopy. I still plan to
suggest to my daughter that she get screened for CD. For all I know,
the EG is on top of CD, or CD may predispose to this condition. He
says eosinophilic gastroenteritis is rare and poorly understood. Gee,
that sounds familiar.

I've tried researching the condition on the net, but have not found
out much yet, except that diet cannot cure the disease, just
ameliorate the symptoms if offending foods (wheat, milk, all the ones
we worry about on the list were mentioned as possible agents) are
eliminated.  The antibody involved in the body's response is the IgE
one, not IgA or IgG. The whole gastrointestinal tract is affected,
from the esophagus down, and there is a lot of damage to the lining
of the intestines, but with thickening and roughening of the tissues
instead of the smoothing of CD. The treatment of "choice" is
Prednisone. I am very unhappy about this development, naturally. I'd
rather have CD and know that eating properly will repair the
situation.  At least I know wheat will do a number on me very much
like it does on celiacs (the symptoms feel identical), even if the
type of tissue damage is different. So I am back on a gluten-free
diet. Maybe I should insist on the other blood work, but I've had
about all the gluten challenge I can stand. One interesting note: EG
is apparently a fairly common problem with ferrets!  :-}

Thanks again to all the wonderful folks on the list who have helped
me with their messages and support. I'm staying on the list, since I
need to eat the same way celiac sufferers do. Soon I'll post all the
dumpling suggestions I got!

Bobbi in Baltimore