Does Sedimentation Rate Have Anything To Do With Celiac?

[mamatide]

I brought DD in to the GP last week and while he is clearly thrilled to see the improvement in her skin tone and sub-cutaneous fat tissue (we went ahead with a gluten-free diet and are on week 9 with great improvement but no diagnosis), he said that he wanted to re-run blood work because he was concerned about her sedimentation rate in her pre-diet (pre-diagnosis) blood tests.

He said that increased sed rate was indicative of IBS or Crohn's but not Celiac. He said he'd like to see if that was resolving itself.

Can anyone shed some light? From what I can find on the Internet increase in sed rate means inflammation and other very nasty illnesses (cancer being one of them).

Any btdt advice, stories etc. are appreciated.

mamatide

[nikki-uk]

Well,a high sed rate means there's inflammation in the body somewhere,but doesn't tell you where unfortunately.

My husband had arthritis and celiac disease.In the arthritis clinic they always check his sed rate-and whilst he's been healing on a G.F diet his sed rate has been a bit high (but no obvious pain or swelling of the joints).

I have put it down to the inflammation still occuring in his bowel (I think you can get inflammation with celiac disease)

[mamatide]

  nikki-uk said:

Well,a high sed rate means there's inflammation in the body somewhere,but doesn't tell you where unfortunately.

My husband had arthritis and celiac disease.In the arthritis clinic they always check his sed rate-and whilst he's been healing on a G.F diet his sed rate has been a bit high (but no obvious pain or swelling of the joints).

I have put it down to the inflammation still occuring in his bowel (I think you can get inflammation with celiac disease)

Well, that's interesting. DD has been complaining a lot about sore legs - maybe she also has joint pain. So hard when they're only 5 years old...

[mart]

Before my son was diagnosed, he was hospitalized with terrible stomach pain, source unknown. He had all kinds of tests, including a cat scan with contrast. The only positive test results were a high sed rate and a high white blood cell count. Both can be indicative of inflammation, but the doctors didn't know what to make of them then. After his celiac diagnosis, his gastroenterologist said he thought the celiac was the culprit. My son also complains of leg and joint pain often. So, I don't have anything conclusive for you, just wanted you to be reassured that you're not alone.

[Nancym]

I don't want to scare you but there's an autoimmune arthritis called Ankylosing Spondylitis that can become active in young folks and show up as leg pains. They're usually written off as "growing pains" by doctors. Just tuck this info away in your mind and if, later, your child continues to have a lot of joint, muscle, tendon pain, this is an avenue to pursue. It is best caught early because if it progresses it can lead to fusing of the joints and immobility and so on.

It is also related to celiac because celiac causes the gut to leak and then the body starts to react to normal proteins as if they were invaders.

[nikki-uk]

  mamatide said:

Well, that's interesting. DD has been complaining a lot about sore legs - maybe she also has joint pain. So hard when they're only 5 years old...

Didn't mean to alarm you that your little one would get arthritis-just that my hubbie had high sed rate even when arthritis was inactive.

My son who is undergoing tests for celiac disease also complains his legs ache alot-I think it's quite common in little celiacs