How Soon After Becoming gluten-free Should I Get Blood Re-tested?

[jkmunchkin]

I have been gluten-free for close to 6 months now. I know once you are established on a gluten-free diet you usually only need to visit your GI once a year but I vaguely remember hearing something about getting your blood test done at 6 months when you initially start on a gluten-free diet to see how your numbers are. Does anyone know? If this is the case I'd like to think about making an appointment in the next couple of weeks.

[aljf]

I heard that--

I saw Dr. Susie Lee at the Columbia U Celiac center, and she suggested doing follow-up blood work after 6 months and then a re-biopsy after a year.

(She also had me get a bone density scan.)

She's really good-- I recommend her!

[par18]

I had a blood test after about 6 months but not for levels of anti-bodies. Because I responded so well to diet and feel so good I was only checking things like blood sugar. I had a bone density test done about a month after Dx. I would probably get annual bone scan before blood tests if I still feel good with none of the previous celiac disease symptoms.

[julie5914]

I was still having a lot of trouble, so I was retested at 3 months and will be tested again (I hope) next week at 6 months. I really hope the numbers are down this time since I feel better after nixing dairy. Then I will go to doing a yearly check-in on it. I never had endoscopy - I wouldn't do that at 6 months after because of cost and trouble - the blood test should be enough to show progress. If my blood numbers are still super high I may do endoscopy, but if yours are down from last time and you're feeling better, I'd skip it and stick with the blood numbers.

[skoki-mom]

I think it depends what "numbers" you are testing for. My GI told me that it was pointless to do antibody testing as the antibody titre is not a good predictor of disease. For instance, if my antibody level was half of what it was before, it does not mean I am 50% better than I was before. However, if you are testing for anemia and nutrient levels and stuff, I'm really not sure because I'm not getting tested for those either any time soon as they were all normal at the time of Dx. There is no reason they would decline with me on the diet. I will probably have another scope sometime in the next year, though, to find out what is going on in there.

[jerseyangel]

I had the CBC and metabolic panel done at 6 months because I was anemic and my white cell count was low and a few other things were out of range pre DX. I will be seeing my GI the first week of Jan. -- don't know if he will do any more testing.

[julie5914]

My doc will be doing antibody testing because she says there will be no antibodies produced if there is no gluten to react to. And the tTG will show if damage is still being done. That's why we have to be on gluten for several weeks before a diagnosis blood test, right?

It's true that it won't show if you are healing, but it will show that you're not having reactions anymore and that the diet is working.