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At 02:15 PM 11/6/99 -0500, K. Guy wrote:

>I encourage
>those who are still wondering if they have sprue, DH, or a gluten-related
>allergy, to find a reliable doctor and get tested so they know that a
>gluten-free diet is really the proper course of treatment for their condition.
>
>Kim Guy, Michigan

Kim, I'm glad you wrote more on this topic. I believe this is a fruitful
topic and it is something that many on the list need to come to terms with,
and you make some good points. But, if I may cite my own case as an example
that may be typical of many others on the list, I was told by my
gastroenterologist, through the blood tests, that I was intolerant to
wheat, had "wheat dumping" (whatever that is), and was lactose intolerant.

My blood tests came out negative for celiac. However, after five years of
experience, I wonder what the chances could possibly be that I am not
celiac given the following facts:

         1. I react as hard to rye and barley as I do to wheat.

         2. The lactose intolerance does tend to go along with celiac, not
wheat intolerance. Because, as I understand it, other than lactose, only
soy and gluten will damage the villi to cause lactose intolerance.

         3. To take the biopsy, which is certainly not reliable as a
contraindicator and very likely to also give a false negative also, I'd
have to go back on gluten for three months (according to him) to be tested.

And I certainly don't want to go through that.

         4. I'm Irish, and we seem to outdistance all other ethnic groups
in the prevalence of this disease. The old figures that I found about three
years ago were: Irish by a factor of 300; Americans (probably because of
all the Irish here), the group with the second highest incidence, by a
factor of 60; and Northern Europeans by a factor of 15.

         5. Looking back at my relatives on the distaff side, most of them
seem in hindsight to have exhibited symptoms of celiac as they grew older,
including the classic "volleyball belly" when they were past 70. And
intestinal lymphoma is the only cancer that anyone in my family has ever had.

If I were to have the biopsy and it insisted I was not celiac, I don't see
that my diet or behavior would change in any way, since anything with
gluten in it makes me sick, no matter what any test says.

Given this information, I can see very little reason to go through the
health damaging experience of a three month, or even a two week gluten
challenge. I do hope that no one comes up with a good reason for me to do
that since I'd dread the gluten challenge so much :) -vance

What has three teeth and sixty feet?

The front row at a Willie Nelson concert.