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About six months ago, I had a positive diagnosis of Alopecia. This is an autoimmune disease that causes your hair to fall out. There are different types of Alopecia. I seem to have two different types, or maybe a variation on one of them. My  hair has fallen out behind one of my ears in a large C pattern, though since I've grown my hair longer, you can't really see the hair loss. And I have a spot of hair loss on the back edge of my scalp. I had been to two different dermatologists in the last three years, who both said I didn't have Alopecia, only to return to the second dermatologist this past March who confirmed the Alopecia.

  Not satisfied to just wait and see if my hair would grow back, and unwilling at this point to have little shots of cortisone in the scalp area with the hair loss, I've done a lot of research on the internet, looking for anything I could find about Alopecia. At the beginning of November, on a lark, I decided to "google" Alopecia and Celiac. My younger sister was diagnosed four years ago with Celiac Disease, and though her gastroenterologist suggested she test her daughters, he never suggested that her sisters or other family members be tested. So, it never even occurred to me that I might have CD. But lo and behold, when I googled Alopecia and CD, I found a Gastroenterology medical journal reference to an article that suggested a connection. I was having blood drawn for my annual physical (for cholesteral). I called my internist and asked if the transglutaminase antibody could be checked in my blood.

  Bingo! Normal is 20, my number was 115. She told me to go off gluten and that I didn't need to have the endoscopic biopsy. I went off gluten for about a month and found that I no longer had a stomach ache. I was so used to having stomach aches after eating, but I always assumed I perpetually ate too much and that was what gave me the stomach aches. Having gone off the gluten and not having stomach aches makes me realize that it was probably the gluten causing the stomach aches all these years!

  Anyway, though I've had success eating gluten-free, it hasn't been easy, as you all know. I decided that after a month of doing this, rather than spend the rest of my life not knowing for sure (even though I had the positive blood result and the anecdotal evidence), I want to have the biopsy. The doctor who is going to do it wanted me to do the gluten challenge, which I started this past Monday. So now it's been almost a week. And yes, I have the stomach aches all over again. And I'm not thrilled at all about eating gluten for another five weeks until the biopsy. But I won't complain too much, as I really want the biopsy to confirm CD.

  I have two questions:

  1. I am wondering if anyone else with CD on this listserv has Alopecia. I'll bet I'm not the only one. I know that CD tends to pair with other autoimmune diseases, but there's not a lot of talk about CD and Alopecia.

  2. I am wondering exactly how much gluten I need to eat each day for the next five weeks, during my gluten challenge? How much is enough?

  Thanks in advance. So glad to have found this listserv.

  Ellen A.



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