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Are Headaches And Slight Nausea Symptoms Of Celiac?


jenn42

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jenn42 Explorer

My daughter started a couple months ago with headaches and light nausea only in the mornings. I had her tested for Celiac and it came back positive. I put her on somewhat of a gluten-free diet for 12 days and she lost 4 pounds. We went to see a GI yesterday and she's having an endoscopy and biopsy done next week. GI put her back on gluten and she's had no headaches or nausea today. She said she feels really good, better than when she was on gluten-free. This is so confusing. Could the blood tests be wrong?


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mushroom Proficient

Tlhere are very few false positives on the blood testing. Her feeling better back on gluten could be entirely due to her having been going through a withdrawal from gluten, which acts like an opioid on the body; this withdrawal generally lasts for 2-3 weeks. Some people seem to react immediately to gluten reintroduction, for others it takes the antibodies a while to build up again and create havoc. I wouldn't find your daughter's reactions unusual. See how she feels at the end of the week. I just hope the 12 days gluten free has not affected the outcome of the biopsy. While full healing of the intestine takes a while, healing does start immediately upon withdrawal of gluten.

Headaches/migraine are definite neurological symptoms of celiac. Some people I believe get nausea along with headaches, but I am not a headache sufferer so not a good person to ask. Nausea is my principle symptom now when I am glutened, but this is a GI symptom for me.

Katrala Contributor

If she has celiac, the "healing" won't be overnight.

If the blood work was positive, it's likely she has celiac. Unfortunately, "somewhat" gluten-free isn't an option. It sucks, but "100% gluten-free" is the only solution.

heidi g. Contributor

I get migraines and bad headaches either early in the morning or late at night. Im always nauseous. It could also be from not absorbing nutrients properly from damaged villi. That is my main cause of my headaches.

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    • Samanthaeileen1
      thank you RMJ! That is very helpful advice. Good to know we aren’t crazy if we don’t do the endoscopy. We are going to try the gluten free and see how symptoms and levels improve.    thank you Wheatwacked (love the username lol) that is also reassuring. Thankfully she has an amazing and experienced pediatrician. And yesss I forgot to mention the poop! She has the weirdest poop issues.    How long did it take y'all to start seeing improvement in symptoms? 
    • Wheatwacked
      My son was diagnosed when he was weaned in 1976 after several endoscopies.  Given your two year old's symptoms and your family history and your pediatrition advocating for the dx, I would agree.  Whether an endoscopy is positive or negative is irrelevant.   That may happen even with endoscopy.  Pick your doctors with that in mind. In the end you save the potential trauma of the endoscopy for your baby.   Mine also had really nasty poop.  His doctor started him on Nutramigen Infant because at the time it was the only product that was hypo allergenic and had complete nutrition. The improvement was immediate.
    • RMJ
      So her tissue transglutaminase antibody is almost 4x the upper end of the normal range - likely a real result. The other things you can do besides an endoscopy would be: 1.  Genetic testing.  Unfortunately a large proportion of the population has genes permissive for celiac disease, but only a small proportion of those with the genes have it. With family history it is likely she has the genes. 2.  Try a gluten free diet and see if the symptoms go away AND the antibody levels return to normal. (This is what I would do). Endoscopies aren’t always accurate in patients as young as your daughter. Unfortunately, without an endoscopy, some doctor later in her life may question whether she really has celiac disease or not, and you’ll need to be a fierce mama bear to defend the diagnosis! Be sure you have a good written record of her current pediatrician’s diagnosis. Doing a gluten challenge for an endoscopy later in life could cause a very uncomfortable level of symptoms.   Having yourself, your husband and your son tested would be a great idea.  
    • Samanthaeileen1
      here are the lab ranges.  Normal ranges for tissue transglutaminase are: <15.0 Antibody not detected > or = 15.0 Antibody detected normal for endomysial antibody is < 1.5. So she is barely positive but still positive. 
    • JoJo0611
      I have been diagnosed with coeliacs disease today after endoscopy, bloods and CT scan. I have also been diagnosed with Mesenteric Panniculitis today. Both of which I believe are autoimmune diseases. I have been told I will need a dexa scan and a repeat CT scan in 6 months. I had not even heard of Mesenteric Panniculitis till today. I don’t know much about it? Has anyone else got both of these. 
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