Gluten Sensitivity Vs. Celiac Disease

[lonewolf]

Okay, I've been working on an analogy, let's see if it makes sense.

All doctors should be trained to recognize a broken arm, right? Let's say that in medical school they teach that anyone with a broken arm will have fallen out of a tree, so the docs are trained to look at the symptoms and then ask if the person has fallen out of a tree. If they have, then the diagnosis is "broken arm", since it meets the criteria they were taught in med school. But if someone comes in with what looks like a broken arm, but it is discovered that they were injured by falling off a skateboard, then the doc is confused, since it doesn't fit his training, and won't give the broken arm diagnosis. Now, the person with the broken arm KNOWS it's broken (at least, normally they would), but the doctor insists it isn't, since according to his training broken arms can only occur with falling from trees. So the poor patient is stuck trying to help themself get better or go to more open minded doctors.

Those with diagnosed Celiac Disease are like the people who have broken arms from tree falls. The medical profession recognizes their condition. Those of us with un-dx'd Celiac or gluten intolerance have the same/similar problem, but since we don't fit the traditional mold, (our arms were broken in some other way) MD's don't know what to do with us, so we are dismissed.

Just like all broken arms need to be casted, no matter how they were broken, all people with any type of gluten sensitivity/intolerance need to be gluten-free for life.

[VegasCeliacBuckeye]

Read "Dangerous Grains" -- it explains the differences...

[georgie]

I don't understand this either. My blood test was normal and Dr said I was only Gluten Intolerent and may improve in time.

Does anyone know if the gene test is available in Australia?

I am sure this has been asked many times, but I just do not understand what the difference is between Gluten Sensitivity and Celiac Disease? Is the only difference in the genes or is there more to it?

[AndreaB]

I don't understand this either. My blood test was normal and Dr said I was only Gluten Intolerent and may improve in time.

Does anyone know if the gene test is available in Australia?

Enterolab will ship overseas, you would need to pay for overnight shipping, they may not require overnight with the gene test, not sure.

[MistressIsis]

As far as I understand it Intolerance is that there isn't as much damage. Once you're Celiac, you can literally kill yourself by ingestng Gluten.

I'm intolerant, a friend of the family is Celiac, he was so far gone that he was in the hospital for months. They thought he had Spinal Meningitis!!

I have had the blood test but because I had already eliminated gluten it came back as no problems with anything. Well I know within 3 bites if I've ingested since it comes right back out.

As with your daughter, PMS, mood swings even the flow & duration of my period has changed dramatically! No cramps, maybe a day of PMS and maybe 4 day cycle. So there is a plus side!

[Mayflowers]

Dear Mayflowers,

Now I am confused! I went to the Celiac.org web site, and another web site and it appears that gluten intolerance is the same thing as Celiac disease. I had negative blood tests for antigliadin, and skin testing revealed no reaction. A biopsy done several years ago revealed nothing. I tried digestive enzymes and they did not help. So am I a celiac?

Sincerely,

NoGluGirl

Uh, that's what I just said. I was referring to the difference between gluten intolerance and wheat "allergy".

I have two gluten intolerant genes (from Enterolab). I will be 60 this month, and Enterolab's test indicated normal absorbtion. Do I have Celiac? I don't think so. You would think that after having this condition for the last 40 years of my life and still eating gluten I would have malabsorbtion issues. I don't. Does it make any difference as to how I treat the intolerance vs celiac. No.

I started a thread a while back asking about the severity of symptoms of those diagnosed celiac vs "only" intolerant, thinking that those with celiac genes would be far more sick than those with intolerance, and that the celiacs would react to very small amounts of gluten and intolerant folks would be able to tolerate more. My theory was immediately shot down. There seemed to be a wide range of symptoms across the board for both, from mild to severe symptoms. At least, from the population here on this forum.

As has been mentioned, there are probably more pieces to the puzzle than we know at this time.

Your gluten intolerance genes are probably recessive and not a dominate gene. That's why they never activated. My gluten intolerance gene is a dominate gene and my celiac gene is the recessive gene. I have gluten intolerance, but Enterolab says that means I have celiac disease. So I guess it's all the same

gluten intolerance = celiac disease, just a milder form of it. If you aren't gluten sensitive then, your genes didn't acitvate and you don't have celiac disease.