Celiac Symptoms Or Not?

[kathleenp]

So I know there are a couple hundred celiac symptoms, but so many of the symptoms could be something else.  I'm wondering if I'm just paranoid.  

 

I came to this forum a couple years ago because I decided to google bipolar and gluten free diet-I have no idea why  thought to do that, but at the time I was diagnosed bipolar-I no longer think that is accurate, but I have had life long depression and anxiety-neither of which have been responsive to meds.  I did a gluten-free diet for 6 1/2 weeks, and the depression did improve, but I'm Pretty sure I got glutened-had really bad stomach pain and violent vomiting around an hour after eating what I thought was gluten-free food.  The depression immediately came back, and I quit my gluten-free diet.  5 months later I suddenly got severe heart palpitations (PVCs).  I had trouble breathing they were so bad, so we tried medications that it did not respond to-the last medication made me very ill-part of those symptoms included a sour stomach, pain in my stomach and nausea upon awakening.  When I got of the med, these same symptoms will suddenly appear-always in the morning.  I can go months without having it and then it shows up.

 

Last September I started taking liquid ionic magnesium-I had fantastic results.  Depression left, and weird stuff happened- my eyelashes and eyebrows were almost nonexistent and they grew back, bladder pain disappeared, my skin had been painfully dry-could hardly take showers it was so painful-now it's fine.  Twitching in my eye lids gone, insomnia gone, Have less desire to eat large amounts go food and much decreased desire for sugar, had some very slow weight loss without trying, joint pain pretty much gone, among other things.  It seemed odd to me that no one else that was taking the magnesium got such a big improvement in so many symptoms.  Then i realized that the ionic magnesium is not digested-it's absorbed.  Made me wonder if it's because of that, that I was seeing such good results with it?  Was i not able to absorb it from regular supplements and food?

 

In January I suddenly became depressed again and was exhausted-had trouble walking from the car to the house.  I Googled 'tired all the time', and anemia and thyroid kept coming up.  I have HMO insurance and it was going to be 6 weeks to change doctors and I felt really bad and i had been borderline anemic 20 years ago so I decided to take iron-it happened to be a large dose tablet and I felt better within a few days.  It took a couple of months to really feel good though.  Now, the exhaustion is back.  I'm still taking iron, but it doesn't seem to be working like it did.  Depression is also back again.

 

Am I crazy to think this might be celiac?  To be honest, I am quite overweight and I feel like doctors attribute everything to the weight.  I am going to make an appointment and at least get regular blood work done.  I did have a doctor do a celiac blood test a couple of years ago, but it was negative.  I will be seeing a new doctor.  If what I've written sounds like I should be tested, are doctor's open to testing?  It seems like I may have read that doctors won't test for celiac unless it's really obvious and I have no idea what this new doctor's views will be on this.  Any thoughts?  (Sorry I wrote a book in this post…)  

[nvsmom]

It could be celiac disease. Your symptoms could be from celiac disease, and I think you might as well get tested. There are celiacs around here with fewer symptoms than you, so I think it's worth a shot.

 

These are the most common tests. Try to get as many of them done as possible as some tests can show a false negative.

• tTG IgA and tTG IgG
• DGP IgA and DGP IgG
• EMA IgA
• total serum IgA (a control test)
• AGA IgA and AGA IgG (older and less reliable tests)

 

Keep eating gluten until all testing is done.

 

Celiacs are often low in magnesium, calcium, B12, D, A, potassium, iron, ferritin, zinc, copper... and I think I'm forgetting something.  You might want to run those too.

 

Some of your symptoms sound like hypothyroidism too. The fatigue, dry skin, missing eyebrows and hair are pretty classic signs.  Plus thyroiditis is linked to celiac disease.  Ask for these tests:

• TSH (should be near a 1)
• free T3 and free T4 (should be in the 50-75% range of your lab's normal reference range) - make sure it is a "free" T test and not just T4 or T3
• TPO Ab

Best wishes.