Carotene

[laryssabeth]

Hi!

I'm new to the site.

I saw a gastroenterologist on Monday for my symptoms of chronic diarrhea, bloating, gas, apthus ulcers, angular chelitis.

I told him that my uncle was diagnosed with Celiac Disease recently. He flat out said "You do not have Sprue"and "Your uncle is not close enough to you to be concerned about". But to appease me he would perform a "Keratine" blood test, he said this would show if I had it or not.

From what I've read, there is no mention of Keratine blood testing in diagnosing celiac disease.

Has anyone heard of this???

I am scheduled for an EGD on Monday, maybe a biopsy well tell the tale.

Thanks

laryssabeth

[tarnalberry]

hmm... uncle is a second degree relative... that gives you a 1 in 40 chance (statistically speaking) of having it as well (Open Original Shared Link). Sounds like he needs a bit more education...

(I also have never heard of that test...)

[gf4life]

laryssabeth,

could the doctor have said "Ferritin" and not keratine. When checking for Celiac some doctors start with checking for anemia, since some Celiacs are anemic. This would not be able to tell if you have Celiac or not, since not ALL celiacs are anemic. I was checking around to see if I could find out what keratine blood test your doctor was talking about, and I came across the list of blood tests my doctor ran on me. All of a sudden I realised that your doctor might be checking you for anemia. You should check. Call the doctor office and ask them to look up what blood test was ordered for you. Then ask them what that is for. Your doctor is very ignorant about current testing for celiac disease. And genetics. If your parents sibling has it, then chances are pretty high that your parent was a carrier of the gene and passed it to you.

God bless,

Mariann

[laryssabeth]

Mariann,

Thanks for the reply, I will ask the doctor today as I have an appointment for an EGD this afternoon.

Thanks again,

Beth

[laryssabeth]

I saw my dr today and he said my CAROTENE (I spelled it wrong to begin with) was "borderline" so he was sure to get small bowel biopsies to be sure.

Apparantly if you have celiac, you don't absorb carotene (vit A??).

Thanks for all of your help.

Beth

[laryssabeth]

I previously posted a question about "keratine", but my spelling was wrong.

The blood test was for "carotene".

The DR said that it was "borderline" and I had a small bowel biopsy, which I have yet to receive the results from.

Does anyone know what the normal range for carotene might be???

By the way, when he told me that the carotene results were borderline, he no longer acted like I was stupid!

Thanks in advance for your help!!!

Beth