<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

Blood tests should be negative by now if gluten fully eliminated.  
Endoscopies are probably a similar situation, depending on the amount of gut 
damage originally present. At this point, if your friend needed a serious 
rule out of celiac, they would need to go back on gluten for several months. 
  If they feel better on the diet, they might consider going back on gluten 
more of a hassle than simply staying on the diet long term and considering 
the diagnosis as a non celiac gluten intolerance. My understanding of 
current literature and clinical experience is such that one can be 
intolerant of gluten without having overt celiac disease diagnosable through 
blood and biopsy.

Best wishes,
Selena Eon, ND (naturopathic doctor)


Just because one does not test positive for CD does not rule out gluten 
sensitivity without enteropathy. Current accepted testing for CD is far from 
perfect. There is a growing number of doctors who see that gluten 
sensitivity is a much broader problem than just villous atrophy.

Your friend may want to read this article by Dr. Scott Lewey. 
http://ezinearticles.com/?Diagnosing-Celiac-Disease-and-Gluten-Sensitivity&id=239028

If your friend has been GF for 8 months, then the blood tests and biopsy may 
very likely be negative even if they would have been positive before going 
GF. The goal of the GF diet is to heal the gut and make the antibodies go 
away.  How is your friend feeing? Has she noticed an improvement in her 
health with the GF diet? If so, is improvement proof enough for her? 
www.enterolab.com has a stool test for antibodies. Dr. Fine says it will 
remain positive for up to a year of a GF diet.
Anne


On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 19:25:36 +0000
katherine merrill <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

An acquaintance who has been following a gluten-free diet for 8 months asked 
me if a blood test would confirm if she is or is not celiac.

There is a good chance that it might.  There are several different blood 
tests (IgA, IgG, etc).  If she feels she needs to prove something, then she 
should take all of them as soon as possible.

Her doctor was very skeptical that she was celiac as an endoscopy did not 
confirm such. However she was experiencing such pain and was so exhausted 
that she voluntarily went gluten free.  Thanks for your assistance.

Medicine is an art not a science.  Doctors are often wrong, and the tests 
are not particularly accurate.  At least some doctors consider Celiac to be 
a form of food allergy, and the damage to the cilia is collateral to the 
allergic reaction.  This is where the gluten is absorbed and first makes 
contact with blood.  Those blood tests are allergy tests.



Institutions have an entirely different view of reality.  In their view 
doctors are all-knowing experts who give reliable answers to every question 
they ask.  They are only bureaucrats who believe that regimentation makes 
everything easier.  It does make their lives easier, and for this reason 
they will never admit that regimentationkills people.

The only reliable test for food allergy is whether eliminating the food 
makes the symptoms go away.  This test is individual. It cannot be done by a 
doctor.  If you know by your own experience that gluten makes you ill, but 
your doctor tells you your cilia look healthy, what are you going to do?  
Eat gluten and be ill?  If your doctor is any good at all, he will just have 
to take your word for it.

The pressure for tests comes from the institutionalization industries: 
schools, hospitals, prisons, the military, senior housing and so on. They do 
not want the extra cost of a gluten free diet unless it is proven.  Provide 
proof, and they will often ask for more proof.  It costs them money, it cuts 
into their profits, and business is business.  Even when they try to 
accommodate us, they often make mistakes.  Many of the employees in these 
institutions are religious crackpots who believe every normal person can eat 
the recipes in Old Testament. If you roll over and die, they will say they 
took good care of you, but *you* had a problem.

Nearly all doctors practiced in the military as interns.  Here they learned 
to apply medicine for the benefit of the government and not the patient.  
Many of them never unlearn their unethical habits.  Unless your acquaintance 
pays for the doctor yourself out of her own pocket, he is not working for 
her. If possible she should fire her doctor and find a new one.

==============================

You absolutely MUST be consuming gluten for a period of time, in order for 
the tests to be meaningful. There would be no point in having the blood 
drawn to determine if you are celiac, if you are not consuming gluten.  You 
CAN have the gene test done without consuming gluten.  The test looks for 
the DQ2 and/or DQ8 haplotypes.  (You only need one.) This test will not 
confirm if you are Celiac, but will let you know if you have the gene 
associated with Celiac.  (Many people have DQ2 and/or DQ8 and never develop 
the disease.)  If you do not have either one of these genes, it is unlikely 
that you have or will ever develop Celiac Disease.

Suzie Eckard
President and Branch Manager, Gluten Free Group of AZ


All diagnostic tests (serum and biopsy) will likely be negative after 8 
months on the GF diet.

Since she "bit the bullet" and went GF - she might see about getting the 
genetic test for HLA DQ2 or DQ8 - if neither of these genes is present it 
means the doctor was probably correct - no celiac. If one of them is 
present, of course, it simply means that she is genetically predisposed to 
developing celiac disease.


take care,

Megan

================

Our daughter went on a gluten free diet for six months without actually 
confirming she had Celiac.  When we went with her to the doctor, she told us 
that our daughter would need to be on a regular diet filled with gluten for 
at least three months before she could take a blood test to confirm she had 
Celiac.  The blood test will not show there is any problem unless the person 
is eating gluten for a long time.

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