Elevated Antibodies For Life?

[tiredofdoctors]

I went to my neuro, and he said that my antigliadin antibodies were slightly elevated (only one over normal). This is also very frustrating, though, because I haven't cheated ONCE since going gluten-free well over a year and 1/2 ago. I realize that one over isn't NEARLY as much as it was, but it scares me that one over will still do more neurological damage -- however small.

The neuro doc said that his impression is that once you have these antibodies, regardless of how strictly you adhere to diet, you will still have some elevation -- for life.

Has anyone heard of this? I would think that, if you adhered to the diet without compromise, you should be able to get the antibody level down to within normal limits. Any help you can give would be GREATLY appreciated.

xxxooo

Lynne

[mouse]

YOUR BACK!! Glad to see that you have a monitor again. Don't know the answer. Still waiting for my test results. Will call next week and see what the numbers were. My neuro problems have seemed to have gone bye bye lately and I hope they stay away. I am wondering if that one glutened pill that I took 2 1/2 months ago could have lingered that long. I certainly don't care to test it.

[jmengert]

Hi, Lynne--Very funny you should ask this, as I was just told this on Wednesday. My antibodies were also positive (just one over the limit, too), but the rest of my results were fine. My doctor said that since my results came down so drastically, it was fine. He also said that those results are probably as good as I will ever get. I'm having an endoscopy (my first one) in two weeks, so I'll know then if I'm actually getting damaged or not.

So, I guess it could be true. I found it a bit odd, too.

[kbtoyssni]

At first I thought there's no way they can still be high if you're gluten-free. But then I thought about things like mono. I had mono seven years ago and blood tests would still show those anti-bodies. The difference is that mono is caused by a virus and therefore you will always have that virus (as opposed to bacterial infections which go away when the bacteria die), but you feel better because your body builds up antibodies. Celiac isn't a virus, though, so I don't think this same principle applies. Maybe it mimics a virus in some ways, though? I have no idea.

[bremac]

I think the point is that we (most of us I think) can never be 100% gluten free. It might be 99.999% but there is still eensy tiny little bits of gluten that we ingest accidentally. My GI is happy as long as my ABs are hovering around normal. Before I was diagnosed they were almost 100X higher, so if they're almost normal it means I'm doing something right. I know it can be frustrating though because we WANT to have them be zero.