Gluten Week Test

[Lister]

So my doctor has desided to put me on a gluten free diet for 1 week to see how my body reacts to it, if its a positive reaction then he is going to want to do a followup for blood work, he acually knows what he is talking about and knows that i would have to go back onto gluten prior to the test, My consern is if i do acually have CC will going back to eating gluten give me a risk of permanet damage or death? i have herd of people saying that they will die if they have gluten even though i dont think i am near that bad even though i guess i really dont know.

[Ursa Major]

Well, this is the problem with your doctor's thinking:

If you have been off gluten for any length of time (that is more than a couple of weeks) your villi may have healed by now. For your blood test (and especially for a biopsy) to come out positive for celiac disease, you may have to be back on gluten for up to a year.

So, eating gluten again is a valuable tool, because if you react badly you know you can't handle it. It is not likely that it will kill you to do that, only if you keep eating gluten after you start reacting you could get really ill.

Go ahead and try purposely eating something containing gluten (like bread, or pasta, you might as well eat something you really like ) and see how that makes you feel. If you get ill (and you won't necessarily get diarrhea, I don't any more, but I get a lot of other bad problems), you know that gluten is a definite problem. No bloodwork needed.

If you REALLY have constant CC, your bloodwork would show that NOW. Apparently, your doctor is not very knowledgable on celiac disease after all. And if you purposely eat gluten, then the bloodwork wouldn't give you the answer to the CC question any more.

So, he should do the bloodwork without a gluten challenge. If you test negative for celiac disease, that means that you don't have constant cross contamination, and need to look elsewhere for your problems (as in other intolerances).

[ravenwoodglass]

So my doctor has desided to put me on a gluten free diet for 1 week to see how my body reacts to it, if its a positive reaction then he is going to want to do a followup for blood work, he acually knows what he is talking about and knows that i would have to go back onto gluten prior to the test, My consern is if i do acually have CC will going back to eating gluten give me a risk of permanet damage or death? i have herd of people saying that they will die if they have gluten even though i dont think i am near that bad even though i guess i really dont know.

Have him do the blood test first and then try the diet for at least a month. One week is not enough time for many of us to see a difference for diagnostic purposes. And yes if you have celiac and continue to eat gluten it can result in some really nasty stuff. Get the blood test and then try the diet, he wants to do this backwards.