General Questions

[Lister]

So when diagnosted with celiac diease all you have to do is go gluten free and thats that right? i have been reading about people going to centers and stuff like that? is this a seriuse problem? i thought it just ment i have to avoid gluten and wheat forever more?

[tarnalberry]

So when diagnosted with celiac diease all you have to do is go gluten free and thats that right? i have been reading about people going to centers and stuff like that? is this a seriuse problem? i thought it just ment i have to avoid gluten and wheat forever more?

Yes, it's a serious problem. And yes, it just means you have to avoid gluten for ever.

Some people have additional complications that come from the damage that was done to their intestines for years and years, not knowing they had celiac disease. Continuing to eating gluten, and continuing to damage your intestines, when you have celiac disease can lead to a number of very serious complications from vitamin deficiencies (which can cause anemia, osteoporosis, blood clotting problems, etc.), stomach and intestinal cancers, other autoimmune conditions (rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, auto-immune thyroid problems, etc.), neurologic damage, and so on. Many people continue to hunt down the treatment to these subsequent problems for years, before and after finding out they are gluten intolerant.

If you are otherwise fairly healthy, however, maintaining a strictly gluten free diet brings your chances of these complications back down to that of the normal population within two or three years (as long as it takes for your intestines to heal and to recover vitamin stores and fix any minor 'damage'). The gluten free diet is the key to maintaining health with celiac disease, and the repercussions for not following the diet can be severe, though not everyone experiences symptoms/consequences in the same way.

[Lister]

i dont even know how much damage was done i have had blood work- not celic panel, upper GI, and a cat scan also just regular x-rays and the only thing found was some folds in my small intestines, does this meen im in good shape or could there be other things wrong that the doctor is not looking at? im not a healthy person but ihave not had any health complicatiions until now. I am overweight but not nearly as much as i was as when i got sick about a month ago i dropped rapped weight and lost around 110 pounds until put on a gluten free diet. i am a smoker and i know this does make healing a longer prossess but since all i had is those folds should i heal easaly?? sorry i know i ask alot of questions im just well frankly im scared im 20 years old and all of this is really freaking me out

[tarnalberry]

whew! deep breath! :-) the most important thing is that, if you were in a deficiency 'state of emergency', you'd know it. it'd be an emergency. definitely no need to panic!

I'm a little confused on what you wrote about your testing. You said that you've had miscellanous blood work, an upper GI (what does that entail, in this case?) and some x-rays (cat scans included in that). You mentioned that the celiac panel was not part of that blood work.

What was in the blood work that you had done?

What did your doctor conclude for a diagnosis from the intestinal folds?

Have you been diagnosed with celiac disease?

"Folds" in the intestines are not indicators of celiac disease - well, I've never heard of them as indicators of celiac disease, but IANAD. Atrophy of the intestinal villi is an indicator, but you need to have a biopsy done of your intestines to see that. The fact that you seem to be doing better on a gluten free diet (correct me if I'm wrong on reading that into your post), is definitely a good diagnostic test, however.

Many doctors suggest that, when first diagnosed with celiac disease, it's a good idea to run tests for the most common nutritional deficiencies, and do a bone scan to test bone density. A lot of doctors don't do this, and if you don't have any signs of nutritional deficiencies, it's my opinion that it's not the end of the world to not do these tests, but it is worth asking your doctor to get them done. If you have any symptoms of them, then you should get them done.

I definitely would encourage you to hang up the smoking; it will only make the healing go slower - now, and any time you accidentally get glutened. And that will happen, no matter how much you try to avoid it, at some point.

It's a hard transition to make, and it can be a scary thing to have to do. But once you're eating a gluten free diet, and maintaining it, you have every chance of being just as healthy as someone who has no chance of having celiac disease. The condition can be serious, but the diet can also keep it completely maintained, without having to take any expensive drugs with unpleasant side effects.

[Lister]

i am having celiac blood panel on monday

about 2 weeks ago before he put me on gluten free i got really really sick and i kept falling down everywhere and had myself ran up to the ER, at the ER they took blood tests because iwas passing blood in my stools. so i know they tested me to see if i was anemic- that was a negative and they took 2 other blood tests not sure what they where. The catscan was seperate from the X-rays, i had the catscan when i was in the ER. The x-rays where from my first doctor visit about a month ago, when he was looking for gadiverticulitis- what he thought i had and sent me home and told me to eat lots of bread for the next week* jerk* made me more sick then i was lol, then i just had my upper GI done last week, they had me drink some form of milkshake like substance so they could see it go down my upper bowls and my lower bowls, when it hit my lower bowls there was ( the spelling is going to be wrong but thats nothing new) subsarean folds * whatever that meens* and the doctor says thats a sign of celiac disease and told me to stick with the gluten free diet until monday * i confronted him about the fact that blood tests will come with a false negative if i have not been eating gluten and he said that with only 2 weeks gluten free it wont be a problem if i do have celiac diease* before i went gluten free i did have malnurashment problems foods where coming as i was eating them withen like 5-10 minutes i would pass out what i had just ate. my body was getten slowly better then i went out to eat and had a club sandwich and thats when the blood started and 3 days later i was taken off gluten, i instantly started to feel better withen the first 2 days, the only thing left from my symptoms is my stomic growls * these come from the upper left near my heart and my lower left* also sometimes i get growls like right above my butt it sounds like a fart but inside of me its really strange and then i still have minor brain fog but i could be slowing that from going away because i am on medical marjuana for back pain and i smoke everyday besides for those first 2 weeks of beeing sick anyways i know i should have used like enter or something on this post because its going to be hard to read sorry im not really well educated for my age i was expelled from school at a early age. anyways i hope i answerd your questions