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Hello all!

My name is Natalie, and I have two children, one of whom may be gluten
intolerant...or not.  It's all very confusing.  My son will be four years
old in January, but has grown only 2 inches since he turned 2.  He has also
had chronic constipation for the same length of time.  In the first half of
this year, I asked our pediatrician to test him for celiac disease, and she
did, along with several endocrinological tests.  Because his IgG antibodies
number was very high, we were referred to a ped. GI at Children's Hospital
here in Washington DC, who did a few more tests, claimed he was "slightly
celiac" and suggested an endoscopy as well as a rectal suction biopsy (to
rule out Hirschprung's Disease).  That was in July; he was negative for both
HD and CD, although the endoscopy revealed gastritis and severe and
apparently chronic esophagitis, like you'd see with allergies or reflux
(according to the doctor).  She asked us to take him off of dairy for three
weeks, but we saw no change.  Since June, he's been on Miralax to help him
have bowel movements; otherwise, he curls up into a ball and "can't go".
After the dairy-free trial, that doctor said that "some kids just have
constipation and we don't always know why", so now we're seeing someone
else.  He ordered new labs, and also reviewed the biopsy slides - said that
he agreed with the previous reading of them (I guess, that there's no
evidence of damage?).

However, just before that doctor reviewed the slides, he said that based on
my son's clinical presentation (my words) and his labs, he felt that "the
diet" (going GF) would probably be inevitable...so we decided to go ahead
and go GF anyway.  That was about a month ago.  We thought we saw some
improvement in the first couple of weeks, but now we are again hearing
frequent complaints of tummy aches, and he even seems to have some of his
old behaviors when he was constipated and "backed up", even though he
usually has a BM every day or every other day.  Strangely, even though he's
now "regular", I still don't see evidence that things are moving like they
do with my daughter - to be too blunt, if my daughter eats corn, we see it
within 24 hours...and we still don't see anything like that with my son.

So, naturally, as we don't have any sort of official dx, I'm questioning
both the GF diet and/or whether he may have some other sensitivity...and
even though we thought we ruled out dairy, I'm really wondering if that's
the problem (or at least a contributor).

I have tried doing searches on various symptoms and his tests, but maybe I'm
just not phrasing things correctly.  His IgG antibodies were 158 and 165.
His IgA antibodies were 19 and 16 (serum IgA was normal).  The really
strange one was his tTG results:  2 tests were a "2" and one was a "23".
All testing was done by the same lab, too, within the last 6 months.

In Danna Korn's book, she recommends that for elevated IgG antibodies with
normal IgA antibodies, a work-up should be done for enteropathy.  AND, my
husband is convinced that we need to have ELISA testing done for him, since
he was negative for 46 IgE-mediated allergens.

So, although I know no one here can dx my son, I wondered if anyone out
there sees anything that I'm missing, and that I can take back to the
doctor.  Has anyone had non-IgE-mediated allergy testing done, and did you
think it was helpful?  And lastly, is anyone familiar with what a work-up
for "enteropathy" would entail - would it have been evident from the
endoscopy my son had?

I apologize for the length of this, but when I see my little guy laying on
the floor day after day, I feel so helpless.  As I mentioned, my son is
currently GF (and our home is almost 100% GF, too, now), and I'm wondering
if I'm on the right track, or if I need to change directions and try
something else.  Anyone have a crystal ball?

Thanks in advance,
Natalie, mom to James, 1/25/99 and Molly, 5/11/01

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