My Doctor Said He Would Do Biopsies

[mightymorg]

I've had a colonoscopy scheduled for Wednesday, and the appointment was made before I learned about celiac being a possability (less than 2 weeks ago). From what I understand, the best biopsies for celiac testing is during an endoscopy, which they will not have time for on Wednesday. I called my GI last week to request they at least take blood and run a celiac panel, and he said they could do a biopsy for celiac during the colonoscopy. So can they get to to small intestine during that procedure? I just want to hit as many bases ASAP so I can figure out what's going on with me!

[jenvan]

A colonscopy will not do the trick for a Celiac diagnosis. You do need an endoscopy with multiple biopsies. Read here or take with you if your doc gives you a hard time on this: https://www.celiac.com/st_prod.html?p_prodid=44

[floridanative]

Well my experience so far has been, tested too high for tTg (I think) and the doc mentioned celiac disease, them promptly told me he was shceduling me for a colonoscopy. I didn't know at the time to question this. So when I found this site and others I knew the colon test would not show celiac disease, I called and asked for the endoscopy (with biopsy) to be done first I was told no. I had the colon test and then I asked for a Celiac panel blood test and again I was told no - just schedule your endoscopy. So I promtly switched to another practice. They ran a Celiac panel last week and I'm awaiting the results now. My endoscopy is now moved out to Jan. since I switched docs. Good luck to you.

[KaitiUSA]

Nope, a colonoscopy doesn't cut it for celiac.

For biopsies with celiac they use the endoscopy. However, they can only rule celiac in, they can't rule celiac out...if it is in beginning stages or has sporadic damage they can easily miss it.

[mightymorg]

Thanks for the replies! That's what I thought, thought the pamplet on the colonoscopy procedures said sometimes they can get the scope through the opening, into the small intestine...I was wondering if that's how he'd do it.

Needless to say, I have lots of questions for him on Wednesday!

[Carriefaith]

I've had a colonoscopy scheduled for Wednesday, and the appointment was made before I learned about celiac being a possability (less than 2 weeks ago). From what I understand, the best biopsies for celiac testing is during an endoscopy, which they will not have time for on Wednesday. I called my GI last week to request they at least take blood and run a celiac panel, and he said they could do a biopsy for celiac during the colonoscopy. So can they get to to small intestine during that procedure? I just want to hit as many bases ASAP so I can figure out what's going on with me!

They can do a biopsy of the small intestine during a colonscopy; however, this is not as accurate as a biopsy during an endoscopy. The villi damage done in an individual with celiac disease is mostly in the upper part of the small intestine, where the biopsy is done during an endoscopy. The biopsy done during the colonoscopy only samples the very end of the intestine where there would be little damage if any in an individual with celiac disease (There may be a lot of damage here in people with severe villi damage). The colonoscopy is important to have done since it can rule in or hopefully out some things other than celiac disease. But, I think you should request an endoscopy to get accurate results for the possibility of celaic disease. I hope everything works out for you.