Do I Need To Do A Gluten Challenge After Being Low-Gluten?

[thedarkestflame]

I've been eating reduced gluten since January, but not fully gluten free.  I haven't been eating it every day, but maybe once a week a small bowl of pasta or a slice of pizza, a granola bar here and there (maybe every other day?), and maybe one beer per week.  I also haven't been avoiding foods that contain hidden gluten, like sausages, soups that use flour, etc.  Does that count as typical gluten consumption or do I need to do a gluten challenge?  I've started loading up on it a bit more about two weeks ago, cereal every morning, and a granola bar in the afternoon...  Should I wait a few weeks to test, or should this be enough seeing as I wasn't fully gluten-free before.   Before January it was the full cereal in the morning, sandwich for lunch and pasta for dinner.

 

I'm about 99.9% sure I have Celiac (thyroid condition, anemia on and off throughout my life, hand/foot swelling after eating gluten, joint pain/stiffness, and hand/arm numbness, GERD/reflux within an hour of eating wheat, depression during months where we rely more on bread/pasta than on meat/veggies, random nausea/vomiting, eczema next day after eating wheat.. you'd think my doctor would have connected the dots by now?).  I need the piece of paper to get my family to respect me wanting to be gluten-free.  My husband does the cooking and unless I have an actual medical condition gluten-free is just a diet that I can cheat on a couple times a week.  He doesn't believe that it affects me the way it does and often my only choices are the pasta he made for dinner or just not having dinner at all (or having sliced cheese and pickles for dinner). 

[nvsmom]

I don't think there is any real way to know if you were consuming enough gluten, by eating gluten-light, to have a positive celiac test.  People produce autoantibodies at different rates so it would be tough to predict.

 

I would guess that you are probably eating enough, especially since you have been increasing your gluten consumption to at least 2 servings a day.

 

Good luck with the tests. I hope you get very clear results. 

[Deaminated Marcus]

No the doctors don't connect the dots  .

The specialists are even worse as they are so focussed on the one organ they treat.

 

 

On the bright side it's a good time to do a Celiac blood panel before going completely gluten free.

Just make sure you are eating bread daily in the weeks before the test.

I read it's 4 slices of bread for 3 months for those who were gluten free so maybe you won't need to wait as long.

It's good to mix whole wheat and white bread and pasta.

 

 

 

This is the  Celiac panel that I did:

 

Total IgA
Transglutaminase IgA         tTG-IgA
Deaminated Gliadin IgA     DGP-IgA
Deaminated Gliadin IgG     DGP-IgG

 

 

 

It's best to check with your lab first and then give the lab's Celiac test panel code to your doctor

as he problably won' t know what test to give and he'll just give the tTG test alone (not good enough).

 

PS: Potatoes can replace pasta.