<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> I couldn't agree more with Jim Lyles and Nancy Lilly's views on adult gluten challenges. I just had one, and I wouldn't want to do it again, but I'm very glad I did it once. On Monday, I got the biopsy diagnosis. Oddly enough, it was not the diagnosis I expected. Yes, Nancy, there is indeed another illness that has much the same symptoms and is associated with a lot of the same other conditions (asthma, arthritis, etc.) in its sufferers and their kin as celiac disease. If wheat and other grains are a trigger, going on a gluten free diet can make someone with this condition feel like a new person. It is called "eosinophilic gastroenteritis". I'm 53, and likely have had this condition since childhood: gas, bloating, abdominal pain, constipation, diarrhea, skinniness and short stature in childhood, fatigue, frequent illnesses, anemia, etc. Sometimes it's been worse and sometimes better; I felt much better in my teens until I got the arthritis. The underlying causes are different (it's a more conventionally allergic reaction, and the allergens can change over time), as is the course of the disease, and the treatment may need to be different too. I'm still learning about it. So go for the diagnosis if you can. You may be missing the treatment you need. This too is chronic, and has some very different complications, like thickening and hardening of the bowel walls, intestinal obstruction, stenosis of the gastric opening, etc. Some of these could need surgery down the line, even colostomy. So catching it before it gets to that stage could save a lot of grief. What the long-term outlook is *with* treatment, I don't know yet. Wish I did. My dr wants me to go through a colonoscopy next, and sit down to discuss treatment. Needless to say, I'm back on a gluten free diet now, and am having practically no diarrhea, and much less gas and bloating. But there are still other triggers out there that I haven't yet identified, and I have no idea what damage the years have done to my gut. Bobbi in Baltimore