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HI all,

Thanks for everyone's response to my question (way back!) about a conversation I had with our GP as to whether our daughter was born with celiac or developed it late on. 

Every response was consistent, summed up helpfully in this response:

"You aren't really born with autoimmune disease, but are born with the genes
necessary for the development of them.  For instance, DQ2 or DQ8 are the
genes associated with Celiac Disease.  You are born with these genes, but
not everyone with these genes will develop Celiac Disease.  Generally,
autoimmune diseases require a "trigger" of some form in order to develop the
disease.  So your daughter was not "born" with Celiac disease, but had the
genes that can lead to the disease.  This would be true of most (maybe all?)
autoimmune diseases."

So it was really a misunderstanding of use of terminolgy: I was saying she was born with the genes (true) and our GP was saying she wasn't born with the symptoms (also true). Whew!

Some people said that the use of antibiotics was suspected to be the trigger for their (or their child's) development of CD. Someone also said that 18-24 months is a typical time for symptoms to begin; and someone else said that children continue to have immunity from their mother until about then, making difficult to diagnose CD earlier than this age. 

So, once again, I learned a lot from you all. Thanks again for your generous responses - and apologies for the long time in getting to summarise!

Jo

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