New To All This

[skipper30]

First off PLEASE accept my apologies if I am posting in the wrong spot. I have looked for some answers and have not found what I "think" I am looking for.

My 3 year old was very recently diagnosed with Celiac. He was born with duodenal atresia(his duodenal area never opened) and that was fixed at 4 days old. I have know all along that things just weren't right iwth him and finally we got answers. However, we are now wondering about our 5 year old and 20 month old. We are also wondering about the baby that is due in March. Should we push to have a definitive answer for them. Will blood work suffice or should we push for the genetic markers to be looked at.

We are TRYING to do a gluten-free kitchen, but we want to make sure that if the others shouldn't eat it that they don't.

Any suggestions or advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Dallas

[Smunkeemom]

it's hard to tell with little kids if they don't have symptoms. Blood tests won't work if the kids are gluten free, and aren't reliable in small children anyway, if your kids seem to be doing okay on the diet you have them on I would leave it. The doctors will most likely want you to put them on gluten for the tests, but like I said the tests aren't great for kids , they get false negatives a lot.

I am not sure about the gene test so that may be one way to go.

there are lots of people on here that know a lot more than I do, I hope they can help you more.

[chrissy]

dallas, i'm pretty knew here, but i just thought i'd tell you what we have learned about our family. we have 11 children (2 his 2 mine 7 ours) after one of ours had a positive blood test, we tested 3 more of ours (and me) we discovered 2 more of our children have celiac and one is IgA deficient, so we will be doing other blood work to find out his status. ( i'm negative) my dh and 3 more of ours tested negative also. his and mine are older and have not been tested. the one that is still on our insurance will be tested soon. my understanding is that unless we have gene testing done, we will all need to be tested periodically to see if we happen to develope celiac. but, it also sounds like all the genes involving celiac aren't known----so maybe period testing is needed regardless.

christine

[skipper30]

Thanks for the info...I have gone ahead and placed calls to the GI doc, and the pediatrician. Hopefully one of them can give me a more difinitive answer. I think we will all go ahead and get the testing. Eventhough it is SO expensive, I think the genetic markers may be the way to go.

Thanks for the help..Dallas