Celiac Disease In Kids Detected By Growth Screenings - Live Science

[Scott Adams]

Open Original Shared Link Live Science Measuring children's height and weight as they grow can be a powerful indicator of whether they have the digestive condition called celiac disease, and may help doctors diagnose children with the disorder earlier, a new study finds. When used together ... Open Original Shared Link Medical Xpress Open Original Shared Link HealthDay Open Original Shared Link

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[nvsmom]

I just hope doctors use delayed growth as a tool to halp diagnose celiac disease and not as a criterion

 

"In the children with celiac disease, 57 percent of the girls and 48 percent of the boys had abnormal growth two years before their diagnosis, they found. But the children weren't diagnosed until about age 6 for girls and about age 7 for boys, the researchers said."

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As long as they can keep in mind that it is roughly half of celiac children who experience slowed growth - it's not everyone.  I was off the growth chart as a child - very tall.  Sometimes I wonder if that is one of the reasons the doctor never considered a celiac disease diagnosis for me when I first saw the doctors about my symptoms in elementary school.

[greenbeanie]

I hope so too. For YEARS multiple doctors insisted that nothing was wrong with my daughter because she was growing so well (consistently around the 90th percentile for height and weight - tall and thin, as I was at her age). And when I finally figured out myself that she must have celiac and asked specifically for the tests, our doctor refused to even order the tests "because she's so tall". We had to switch twice to get a doctor to order the panel. Thank goodness we got clear and unequivocal blood test and biopsy results. It sounds like the growth screening method might indeed help a lot of kids....but I really worry that it will just reinforce doctors' misconception that tall kids never have celiac.

[nvsmom]

I agree completely.