To Test The Family?

[rat toe]

hi my name is becca and I was diagnosed with celiac about a year ago. I had no symptoms, but since I'm type 1 diabetic, they do regular screening and they caught my antibodies for celiac. The problem I'm having is that even though I have Celiac, my parents don't think its necesssary to test my brothers for it--no one else in our family has Celiac, and my parents act as if its just easier to not know when it comes to my brothers. My GI said it would be a good idea to test them, but the pediatritian seemed pretty uninformed and basically said "well, theres really no hurry to find out because teenagers probarbly wouldn't stick to the diet anyways, right?" I was just wondering if there were any parents out there who had a child with celiac and how (and if) you came to the conclusion to test your other children. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[lovegrov]

Don't know if this will help you, but all celiac experts and the NIH conference on celiac say that ALL first-degree relatives need to be tested. All of mine were, and my 70-year-old father with no symptoms was EXTREMELY positive.

richard

[chrissy]

after we suspected celiac in one child---i had the rest of my kids tested---we discovered that we have 3 children with celiac instead of just the one we originally suspected to have it. i would strongly recomment your parents test your brothers adn themselves for celiac every few years.

[jenvan]

Definitely have your immediate family tested...they have a 1 in 22 chance of having celiac disease b/c you do. (This stat applies to immediate family).

[momothree]

Our son tested positive for celiac in May and it was recommended that our oldest daughter get tested (youngest daughter is only 2, so we will test her when the outcome is more reliable). Our daughter also tested positive, and had absolutely no classic symptoms. It's definitely a good idea. In hindsight, we can see some of the subtle symptoms that she had/has (only been gluten-free for 1.5 months) such as being tired all the time and grumpy much of the time, as well as brain fog. Of course, we are only speculating at her symptoms since most of them could also be personality issues. Another few months of going gluten-free should answer that question for us.

[Confused in Iowa]

Hi Becca - Just wondering how things are going with you on your type 1 diabetes. Can I ask how old you are? My son was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at the age of 10. So far, it hasn't slowed him down at all. He's still very much active in sports, baseball, football, basketball and riding his dirt bike. Besides the few lows he gets when he is doing so much exercising, he hasn't really had any complications. I hope the same is for you.

My son was also diagnosed with Celiac's about a month ago. So we are struggling with that right now especially since he has no symptoms. Do you have symptoms of Celiac disease or did they just find yours in your yearly blood screening.

I have one other son and he is 17 years old. He hasn't been tested, but I am going to go get tested my self. I have a feeling this gene runs in my family.

[rat toe]

Hi Becca - Just wondering how things are going with you on your type 1 diabetes. Can I ask how old you are? My son was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at the age of 10. So far, it hasn't slowed him down at all. He's still very much active in sports, baseball, football, basketball and riding his dirt bike. Besides the few lows he gets when he is doing so much exercising, he hasn't really had any complications. I hope the same is for you.

My son was also diagnosed with Celiac's about a month ago. So we are struggling with that right now especially since he has no symptoms. Do you have symptoms of Celiac disease or did they just find yours in your yearly blood screening.

I have one other son and he is 17 years old. He hasn't been tested, but I am going to go get tested my self. I have a feeling this gene runs in my family.

Hi confused in Iowa,

I'm 17 and I've had diabetes for about 2 1/2 years. Its gone incredibly well for me. I play tennis and lead a very active life. I do have the occasional lows or highs, but that is expected. Its great that your son is doing so well with his. my celiac was caught with just blood work, and then an endoscopy. I have no symptoms of celiac. I have been on the diet for almost a year now, but i see no change from how i felt before. Maybe as I get older I will begin to have syptoms, but who knows? Is your son doing ok on his new diet? I can recommend some great gluten-free foods if you would like. I know its tough sometimes, but sticking to it pays off good luck!

[elizmuller]

hi my name is becca and I was diagnosed with celiac about a year ago. I had no symptoms, but since I'm type 1 diabetic, they do regular screening and they caught my antibodies for celiac. The problem I'm having is that even though I have Celiac, my parents don't think its necesssary to test my brothers for it--no one else in our family has Celiac, and my parents act as if its just easier to not know when it comes to my brothers. My GI said it would be a good idea to test them, but the pediatritian seemed pretty uninformed and basically said "well, theres really no hurry to find out because teenagers probarbly wouldn't stick to the diet anyways, right?" I was just wondering if there were any parents out there who had a child with celiac and how (and if) you came to the conclusion to test your other children. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

This is my first reply ever to a message board! But I think this is a really important topic... My daughter was diagnosed with celiac disease last year at age 4 b/c she had quite a few obvious celiac symptoms. Just for kicks, we tested the rest of the family. To our surprise, our 3 yr old who has NO symptoms came up very positive, had the endoscopy, and definitely had intestinal damage already.

Our gastroenterologist thinks that b/c a lot of these autoimmune diseases overlap, it's possible we dodged a bullet and saved BOTH our girls from getting other things like diabetes, MS, and rheumatoid arthritis. That's just a theory that's floating around...

But regardless of what teenagers would want to eat, proven possible consequences of untreated celiac disease like anemia, osteoperosis, increased cancer risk, infertility, (and possibly increased chance of other autoimmune diseases) should be prevented if possible, and a simple bloodtest might do that for them. I'd DEFINITELY get them tested! Especially since you're asymptomatic yourself. By the way, neither of us parents have it, nor any extended family members so far! It's a mystery how our girls have it, but they certainly do and our youngest has her big sister to thank for getting it caught so quickly. Good luck convincing them!

-Elizabeth