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Hi everyone,
Thank you for sending me all your suggestions for specialists in Seattle. I will summarize at the end of the week.
This has made me interested in another related topic--the value of the diagnosis from and treatment approaches of different types of health professionals. With the explosion in popularity of alternative and complementary medicine and the difficulty in recognizing celiac disease, I would like to know what your experiences are with both conventional and alternative medicine.
Where did you first get your diagnosis? An M.D., a kinesiologist, a naturopath?
What was "enough" for that doctor? The improvement after the diet, a blood or saliva test, the biopsy?
If you received your diagnosis without the biopsy, or from a practitioner that is not an M.D., how does that affect your health insurance if you have it? How does that affect how you are treated by conventional practitioners? If your biopsy was negative, having already started the GF diet beforehand, were you still considered celiac for other treatment purposes, such as getting screened for diabetes, making sure you get a gluten-free IV at the hospital, etc. etc.
I will go ahead and show my hand here....I am a firm believer in using both avenues, the "do what works" approach. After being "diagnosed" at varying times since my teens (I am now 26) with IBS, lactose intolerance, multiple chemical sensitivity, depression and PMS, and seeing no improvement, I went to a kinesiologist, where I was told I was "likely celiac" after seeing improvement on a gluten-free diet and having a positive IgA.
I am now frustrated that I started on the GF diet before knowing "for sure," but I am not too keen on doing a gluten challenge just to have all my old symptoms return. On the other hand, I am afraid that because I was diagnosed and treated by an alternative practitioner, that whenever I need to go to a mainstream doctor, I will be treated as some sort of new age flake jumping on the latest fad diagnosis. I was presented with the question, "what if you have to go to the emergency room, and you have trouble insisting on a gluten-free IV because you did not go through the conventional route, and thust they don't 'believe' you...." And all I thought I needed was clean underwear!
I would greatly appreciate feedback on your experiences with mainstream medicine and alternative medicine and how they mix and overlap. Or if you use one or the other exclusively, I would like to know why.
I will summarize over the weekend.
SaraEllen
SaraEllen M. Hutchison
404.454.6195
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*Please provide references to back up claims of a product being GF or not GF*
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