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Please Help Me Understand A Test Result

gancan

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gancan Apprentice
gancan
Posted

Hi Everyone,

I have gotten part of my results for a blood test I had my doctor run and I am totally confused... The woman who is my doctor's assistant right now is not very helpful in explaining what the results mean..

She gave me the result of my Immunoglobulin A resut and said it was 78 and normal is between 82-453. I asked her what that means and she said "well thats because you took gluten out of your diet"... ?? Which I know I got tested while having gluten out of my diet for about 6 days, I knew the result maybe wouldn't show the correct results but I just wanted to try anyways because I felt so good keeping gluten out of my diet I didn't want to reintroduce and and feel crappy again..

Does that mean the result is abnormal because it was not in the "normal" range??

Also my Transglutaminase IgA Abs was 2 and she said normail is if it is under 20.

Can someone help me understand? Thanks so much!

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mushroom Proficient
mushroom
Posted

The first test is run to check if you are a producer of normal quantities of IgA antibodies, which everybody produces. Your test is abnormal, in that you do not produce enough antibodies (only 78, when the normal range is between 82 and 453. This test has nothing directly to do with celiac disease. It does, however, mean that any test for celiac using an IgA measurement is invalid because you don't produce enough of it. The normal procedure is then to run the tests using IgG (and the total serum IgG should also be checked because some people don't make enough of that either).

Wait for your other results to see what other tests were run, and then you will probably have to have a do over - but they may have done the DGP IgG which would be helpful. :)

gancan Apprentice
gancan
Posted
  • Author

Thanks.

The only other tests I am waiting on are the HLA-DQ2 & HLA-DQ8 so I doubt they ran a DGP IgG.. I had them run those 2 genes because I thought that if it shows up that I don't have them then it would be unlikely that I have celiac disease (is what I was thinking). Right? Then I would think I may be leaning more in the direction that I have an intolerance to gluten rather than the celiac disease.

mushroom Proficient
mushroom
Posted

DQ2 and DQ8 are the most common genes associated with celiac, but are not exclusive, so no, you can't rule out celiac if you don't have either although it makes it less likely.

The celiac tests you have not had (and need) are the following:

  • AGA-IgG
  • tTG (anti-tissue transglutaminase)-IgG
  • EMA (anti-endomysial antibodies)-IgG
  • DGP (deamidated gliadin peptide)-IgG

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