Gluten Challenge Survival

[Guest nini]

Andrew, you are on a Celiac support board, so obviously our radar is going to be on Celiac and gluten intolerance as the cause of most everything.

I know this is not always the case, but in a lot of cases it is the most likely scenario.

I do believe that in all cases the first place you should look is your diet, sure it may not be gluten that is the problem, it very well may be something else entirely. But always look at diet first as the root cause behind health issues. If after thoroughly checking out your diet for allergens or intolerances and you still don't have the answer, look at environmental or structural causes.

[tarnalberry]

While I'm sorry to hear that you don't yet have an answer to the difficulties you're facing, I agree with you - this board does too often state that it's celiac disease. I'd like to point out, however, that you too a much more complete path to determining that it wasn't than the vast majority of people on this board. ;-) You played by the rules for getting a more realistic "negative".

A true negative for celiac disease *is* elusive, but you did the right things to try to track it down. Coming in with an incomplete blood work panel, a week trying the diet with uncertain change, and a single biopsy spot that showed no damage is VERY different from having a full panel of negative antibody tests, a half-dozen negative biospy spots, and half a year to learn and implement the diet; the last of those items being the most important. Most people coming here are in the first boat, with the shaky work, and the only point is that they haven't actually done much to get a solid no. Your approach is the, unfortunately, right way to go to absolutely rule it out when there are celiac-like symptoms. (I say unfortunately because it takes so long and is so complicated.)

But you are right - if 1% of the population has celiac, 99% doesn't. Some of that 99% are bound to find their way here as well, and we all have to be careful not to call every complaint the same.

[loraleena]

Hi Andrew. I am not sure what all the physical problems you have are, but I think it is good you are looking into bacterial issues. You may also want to look into parasites and yeast (candida overgrowth) Good luck!