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I have CD, my husband so far as we can tell does not.  Yet both of us have 
had a tendency to gut pain, gas and diarrhea for years.  Eventually I 
started thinking it was chronic giardia, which I read is really hard to get 
rid of.  The interesting thing is that if we take a daily dose of goldenseal 
or grapefruit seed extract or a glass of water with 6 drops of Lugols, our 
gut symptoms go away.  If we quit, they gradually return and worsen.  Seeing 
as giardia causes leaky gut, which causes food sensitivities, I think more 
celiacs who don't respond well to the GF diet should consider dysbiosis 
first, rather than a really long list of sensitivities.
    My father is a good example.  Some 15+ years ago he was dx'd with 
giardia.   After 2 years and 3 or 4 rounds of Flagyl, my aunt got both my 
parents to take goldenseal and propolis for about 6 months and they finally 
got rid of it.  Or so we assume.  Some 10 years later he showed me an itchy 
rash on his ankle, to which I replied that he was related to me and there 
was an an itchy rash that could come from gluten intolerance.  He changed 
the subject.  After about 4 years the itching became intolerable and he 
tried to get a dx because my nephew had turned up with DH.  Like me, his 
test was negative.  He mostly avoided gluten for a couple of years, never 
getting rid of the rash altogether but getting worse if he cheated or ate 
gluten accidentally.  Finally he got an Elisa blood test done, which turned 
up 29 foods he reacted to.  Wheat didn't show up (well, he HAD been avoiding 
it) but when he tried eating wheat the rash got worse.  The thing that 
irritated him about the 29 foods was that they were all foods that he ate. 
The list of foods he didn't react to were all things he either disliked or 
had never tasted.  I think I have to agree with him that the lists are 
suspicious, and I think leaky gut such as giardia causes could account for 
the test results.  Some of the grandkids went to daycare, and that's the 
easiest way to catch giardia.
    One symptom of giardia I have seen mentioned in a travel book was 
"enough gas to float the Hindenburg".  Belching, rumbling and flatulence are 
the first symptoms for me.  If I take something to kill giardia when it 
first starts, it'll stop again in a day or so.  We have no idea where we 
caught it or how long we may have had it, certainly 8 or more years.  I've 
read that 50% of Americans are now carriers for giardia.  And there are 
other infections, mostly bacterial, that can cause leaky gut, such as 
Clostridium difficile.  Candida is another bad one, and if the news about 
the identical protein sequences as gluten are true, that means that the body 
would react the same to candida in the gut as it would to gluten.  I'd be 
just as suspicious of candida, but I have noted that it mostly just causes 
pain, not a lot of gas.  Someone I met who had symptoms not just of gluten 
intolerance, but of some serious deficiencies, told me that he'd had a lot 
of gas and belching, looked it up, figured out he had Helicobactor and got 
his dr to test and treat him.  He said the belching symptoms went right 
away.
    I just thought you all might find these stories to be food for thought. 
I am definitely interested in anyone else's experiences regarding these 
problems.    Donna 

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