blood test for celiac disease

[Anonymous]

Hi Christine,

I just wanted to update you, I recently was at Lucas’ ped gi appointment and asked about the celiac testing and he confirmed your comments that he doesn’t consider the blood test accurate until age 3 or even 4! He also said that to his knowledge you should be having gluten for about two weeks before the testing for an accurate result….so Lucas’ testing is definitely not trustworthy. The ped gi said that in Lucas’ endoscopy at age 10 mos they didn’t find anything in biopsy, but that it’s also possible to miss the areas that might have shown celiac through biopsy.

Anyways, we trialed gluten and it was very obvious that it was bad. But his symptoms were so strange, just the waking crying throughout the night, but all other nights he was sleeping through for ten hour stretches (and he has regularly slept well since taking out gluten). So, we are proceeding on the gluten free diet and won’t trial again for a while, the ped gi suggested maybe a year. We trialed dairy and it seems to be going okay, he’s having string cheese a few times a week now. I just wanted to thank you again for your knowledge, and it was your comments that made me ask the allergist (we aren’t seeing him anymore) and the ped gi. I don’t want him to have celiac, obviously, but I want to know the true medical possibilities at this point, you know?

Thanks and I hope you and the children are all doing well.

[Anonymous]

sounds like your ped is a bit more up on his info than the allergist. the only thing i think differently than what he said, is i think that it might take more than 2 weeks on gluten before blood tests. neither of my twins showed damage to their intestines when they were scoped. they weren’t looking for celiac with kassie, they were with tianna. tianna did show increased intraepithelial lymphocytes, which are part of celiac, but they were only in one area. i asked the ped gi about my girls having no damage, and the told me that with their test numbers that they probably did have damage. he said the intestine is about 22 feet long and his scope can only get in about 6 feet.

i think i told you before that each of my girls had different symptoms, and that molly didn’t have any obvious symptoms—-so symptoms can really vary—-so i would guess that the waking and crying could be a symptom.

keep me posted and thanks for the update.

[Author]

Posts