6 replies to this topic

[Jen_1984]

Hi, I have stalked around on this forum for a while and finally decided to sign up today and ask all of you seasoned celiacers a question about my lab work. I have had some serious neurological issues, mainly my eyes being very sensitive to light and feeling dizzy, so my neurologist ran a panel of blood work on me and besides a low Vit. D, a slight titer of dsDNA which is so low considered neg. only one came back positive. This was the Deamidated Gliadin Peptide IgG. It was weakly positive at 24. 30 being strong postive. So I googled what Deamidated Gliadin Peptide was and a whole slew of celiac articles popped up. I had a biopsy in 2008 which I was told was negative for celiac disease, but I think my Gastro only took one biopsy. I want to be realistic here and not keep barking up the same tree if I don't have celiac disease, but I was shocked to see the DGP IgG positive. Do you guys think this test could correlate with other possible diseases? They did do other celiac tests like the IgA and Ttg test which were in normal ranges.Endomysial test also normal.

I guess what I want to know is, with this one test being positive, should I look further into celiac disease or should I not worry about it? Thanks for any input in advance.

[mushroom]

Was this one of the articles you read?: (excerpted in part)

http://drrodneyford.com/extra/documents/279-gliadin-antibody-confusion-same-name-different-test.html

"The old gliadin test. In the 1990s, the gliadin antibody test was developed. Although most celiacs had a positive IgG-gliadin antibody test, high levels of this antibody were found in about 10% of the normal population. Consequently, gliadin testing was considered non-specific” from the point of view of diagnosing celiac disease. Mistakenly, this led to IgG-gliadin being maligned as a useless and non-specific test .

Gluten sensitivity. The reality, however, is that an elevated IgG-gliadin antibody specifically means that the person is immunologically reacting to gluten. International research, including my own, has demonstrated that high gliadin anybody levels are frequently associated with clinical disease without the gut damage of celiac disease. This is now known as non-celiac gluten sensitivity, or the gluten syndrome.

Because of the poor predictive value of IgG-gliadin antibodies to detect celiac disease, this old gliadin test has been widely abandoned in the medical community – to the extent that most laboratories do not offer to do this test. But this is about to change.

DGP. This new deamidated gliadin peptide (DGP) antibody is the next big step along the journey. It is more sensitive and specific than EMA or tTG for the diagnosis of celiac disease. Unfortunately, its name is now being confused with the early old gliadin test.
Nicknames

Shortening names is universal, we call these nicknames. Whenever I am in Australia, I introduce myself as Rodney, but my friends call me Rod .

The same name strategy is being used for the DGP test. Instead of its full name, it has been shortened to the gliadin test – the identical name for the old gliadin test. But they test for very different things:

The new DGP gliadin test accurately indicates the gut damage of celiac disease.
The old IgG-gliadin antibody test indicates immunological reaction to gluten, and can help diagnose the gluten syndrome.

This is how to interpret what these gliadin antibodies mean:

A positive old test (IgG-gliadin antibody) usually means gluten sensitivity.
A positive new test (DGP-IgG and DGP-IgA) means celiac disease.
A negative old test usually means that gluten is unlikely to be a problem.
A negative new test means that celiac disease is unlikely at the time of the test, but it does not rule out gluten sensitivity."

I have heard Dr. Ford speak, and I believe that with a weakly positive DGP you should have another Endoscopy, this time with enough biopsy samples to have a hope of finding the disease. This is if you absolutely have to have the official diagnosis. If it were me, I would consider that I had celiac disease and put an end to it. I would definitely not dismiss it.

[Jen_1984]

Wow, thats alot more cut and dry, and seems to be very specific for celiac. I am a little shocked to be quite honest and thought with the neg biopsy from 5 years ago that I had a different unknown disease. I haven't gone completely gluten-free because I think I have been in denial somewhat. I honestly don't know if I could go through another biopsy, and maybe I should just really accept that I should cut out the gluten and be serious about it. I don't mean to sound like a baby here, but going gluten free has been harder than I thought it would be and so I waiver with cutting it out. I guess this article really explains what my blood test meant. I just wish my doctor who ran the test would have taken the result seriously and talked to me about it. Thank you for such an in depth answer, it was extremely helpful.

[powerofpositivethinking]

hi! i had a full celiac panel done by Labcorp, and my DGP igG was also the only thing that came back positive. For my lab, a strong positive was greater than 30 and I scored a 43. I've been researching info to get ready for my follow-up GI appointment and found this article to be very helpful http://www.worldgast..._long_FINAL.pdf

page 8 gives a clear cut diagram that says if you test positive for either ttG igA/EMA or DGP igG, a small bowel biopsy is warranted. I plan on giving my GI a copy at my next apt. Hope you find it helpful!

[Jen_1984]

hi! i had a full celiac panel done by Labcorp, and my DGP igG was also the only thing that came back positive. For my lab, a strong positive was greater than 30 and I scored a 43. I've been researching info to get ready for my follow-up GI appointment and found this article to be very helpful http://www.worldgast..._long_FINAL.pdf

page 8 gives a clear cut diagram that says if you test positive for either ttG igA/EMA or DGP igG, a small bowel biopsy is warranted. I plan on giving my GI a copy at my next apt. Hope you find it helpful!

Thanks for the info, I am excited to read it! Have you gone gluten-free and feel better and do you have any symptoms?

[powerofpositivethinking]

here's a link to the thread about my test results and questions http://www.celiac.co...results-please/

my main one is continuous bloating and frequent constipation, but in the WGO paper, they are listed in the non-classic symptoms portion on pg. 7.

i've tried gluten free for three weeks and things started to improve, but then I read that you needed to be on gluten for the testing, so i started eating it again.

[powerofpositivethinking]

Jen, what did you end up being diagnosed with?  Did you get an EGD done?  Hope you're feeling better!!