4 replies to this topic

[Mom22]

Both our daughter and son have been diagnosed with celiac disease this year via biopsies. Both were asymptomatic, but our son was experiencing constipation which warranted further testing. It was only through a diligent pediatrician did he order several blood screens and one was the gluten enterpathy and that started the ball rolling. He had a biopsy, came back positive, then his sister, had blood work, was elevated, had a biopsy which was inconclusive and had a second opinion by Dr. Fasano of her biopsy slides, which was positive for celiac. I had bloodwork done and all screens were negative. My husband had bloodwork done and also the HLA test and he does have the DQ2 & DQ8 genes. His IGG (112) and IGA (27) are elevated, but the TTG (4) is within normal limits. My husband is seeing Dr. Fasano in September. Due to knowing that the celiac came through my husband's side of the family, we advised his parents to have the initial blood screen done. My mother in law has had her test and the nurse practioner of her family physician called and said she was negative. She didn't have any of the #'s of the results. I asked her if she could get a copy and mail it to me only because initially, my husband's dr. said he was negative, but then when we received a copy of the results, we pursued further testing. I am a work in progress as far as my knowledge of celiac goes, but her results, I think may warrant further testing or seeing a specialist. Please tell me if I am wrong as I don't want to alarm my mother in law. I realize my mother in law could be a carrier and the celiac has not and may never develop in her. My father in law hasn't had his blood work done yet. What do you think?
My mother in law's results.
IGG: 27.7
IGA 42.1
TTG 6

Thanks for an light you can shed on this.

Mom 2 2 celiac children

[mat4mel]

I am totally confused.. all of those results sound positive for celiac to me.. why would they say they were negative?

[Mom22]

Thanks. You just confirmed what I have been thinking all along. I thought the same thing, but they are telling my mother-in-law that her results are negative. I am thinking otherwise. Thank you for your input.

[lovegrov]

Also sounds positive to me.

richard

[gf4life]

Here is my interpretation. See, my doctors office considers (wrongly) anything under 30 to be negative on the IgA and IgG, and under 20 negative on the tTg. So my interpretation is that they are ignoring the obviously positive IgA, since they seem to think the other two are negative.

The problem with this is that the blood tests are NOT as accurate as the doctors think and with even one of them showing positive then it is most likely celiac. Either further testing or a trial gluten-free diet is in order, but I don't recommend the diet until after the biopsy, assuming a biopsy might happen in the future. I personally chose Enterolab after the doctors insisted for two years that my tests were all negative, and the biopsy performed after being gluten-free was negative. Enterolab showed that I not only had the genes, but was producing positive level antibodies to gluten and casein in my intestines, but I did not have severe damage to my intestines (probably since they healed partially while I was gluten-free!).

I hope your mother-in-law doesn't have to be sick for long. Please urge her to get more testing done (or try the diet).

God bless,
Mariann