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

     Firstly Thanks to  the many people who replied to this mail and
     apologies for the long delay in summarising. It's great to have a list
     like this for support.

     I have tried to reduce the replies to an indication of the overall
     content of the replies. If anyone want the full file of all replies
     please let me know.

     To summarise the advice woudl be that if GF works and non-GF causes
     problems, stick to GF.

     Donal Dunne (Waterford, Ireland)


     Below is a very short summary.

     Try the diet and if it works stick to it.

     Many false negatives were experience by many people, who eventually
     went GF, and have remained so to maintain health.

     Many have children who are confirmed celiac, or asymptomatic who have
     been put on GF diets.

     Generally there appears to be a continuum from classic celiac which
     shows in the various tests available to symptomatic which cleas when
     put on a GF diet to the more complex asysmptomatic which seem to be
     discovered by trial and error or mistake.

     Many parents seem to have children with negative result, which when
     put on GF diet transform within weeks. Any subsequent challenges also
     prove negative.

     " It doesn't really matter if he "has" celiac or not, if
     he is healthier eating GF! " a very popular response.

     Keep him gluten-free.  The "scientific" tests are not reliable.  The
     final test is the "eating" test.  It sounds like celiac to me.

     If it works and he becomes a healthy, happy child, I say, "Trust your
     instincts."

     We were asked to consider our background - Irish/English. We both are
     Irish which has a much hight recorded incidence of celiac.

     It does no seem unusual to have entire families CD, with  blood tests
     proving and biopsies disproving the case fro CD.

     that the state of medical technology, and even medical knowledge is
     such that cases like our daughters' are not clear cut -- they sort of
     fall into a grey area

     The reading of the tests and biopsies is extremely specialised and
     many recommend sticking with the speciality labs for doing this work.

     There are many Celiacs
     who have negative signs on blood work and even biopsies.

     For familial tendencies try - Six out of the seven have GI problems
     but the tests did show up CD, but the diet cleared the problems.