Dr. Has No Clue!

[momof2]

My 14 month old was recently diagnosed, so I had the blood work done last week. The lab told me today that the Antigliadin came back positive, so the rest of the tests were cancelled. Should they have been canceled? I thought that we need to look at all the different results to get a more accurate diagnoses. What do we do now? My primary care physician who ordered the tests had to consult a medical book to find out what tests to order. Is the Antigliadin test coming back positive mean I have celiac disease? Or what does it mean?

[Alexolua]

Far from an expert, but I'll try.

  Quote

Is the Antigliadin test coming back positive mean I have celiac disease?

The antigliadin test being positive doesn't mean you have celiac disease. Means you could have celiac disease. You'd beed to get some small intestines biopsies done to know for sure if you have celiac disease, because celiac disease is "offically" when the lining of the small intestines (or villi) are damaged by a gluten intolerance.

What the test can tell you I believe, is that you are intolerant to gluten, and should aviod gluten. The exact same thing you'd have to do, if you had biopsies taken that showed damage.

So I think that's why the lab cancelled the rest.

So I can't be certain, and it'd be nice to see the exact test results too, if you have those. Others here are better than me at looking them over. =)

[GEF]

momof2,

I must say that it was interesting that the laboratory cancelled the rest of the labs. I believe it's important to have them run... for a baseline, even if not for diagnosis. At the same turn, it's amazing that your doctor would consider the one test enough for a diagnosis!

It's great that you have a doctor that's willing to learn about celiac, but you might find it beneficial to find a doctor that more knowledgeable. I say that only because I'm on my 4th and have spent much time and money in the search for answers.

Do you happen to know which antigliadin came back positive and what the numeric result and scale are? If you don't know, I'd call your doctors office.

Your antigliadin returning a positive result means that your immune system is launching an attack against gliadin... in other words, you're gluten intolerant. However, an untreated intolerant person could develop full-blown celiac (that's when the intolerance is evidenced by damage to the small intestinal villi). I'm gluten intolerant, since not all of my tests were positive, but I'm not sticking around untreated so I can develop celiac.

Have you explored the site index on the board? It has a lot of good info! https://www.celiac.com/st_main.html

Gretchen

[momof2]

Thanks for the replies. I will call the Dr. tomorrow. They were supposed to call me today, but I have a feeling the Dr. didn't want to face the news that he knows nothing about it!