Which Option Is Best?

[Guest AlabamaGirl]

I've been gluten-free for about 8 months, but still get into it accidentally about every 3-4 weeks. (We travel & eat out a lot.) I KNOW I'm gluten intolerant (whatever the cause) because a host of symptoms I've had since I was a child (that had steadily grown worse) have completely disappeared since going gluten-free. Anyway, in the last year or so I've noticed many of the same symptoms cropping up in my 4 yr old daughter, so I've decided to get tested for celiac to see if I could have passed this onto her and possibly my son who is 2.

I've read up on this quite a bit the past year and also talked with a lady who lives near me who was has celiac, and I believe these are my options in my area:

1) Drive to Atlanta and meet with a gastro specialist whose expertise is celiac, but her services are only covered 50% by my insurance.

2) Visit a gastroenterologist & internal medicine doctor close to me who can do a endoscopy and diagnose celiac that way, but really doesn't have much more knowledge about celiac than that. (He's covered by my insurance 100%, of course.)

3) Do Entero Lab testing (who knows if that is covered!) and save myself a trip to the doctor.

Someone out there may know of some options for me that I have not discovered. Money is not extremely tight around my household, so I could afford all of these if I had to, but I don't want to shell out unnecessarily. We're not rich!

My question is, if you were in my position ...

What would YOU do????

Thanks so much for any advice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[happygirl]

Funny you should ask ....I lived in Alabama when I was diagnosed (and I was only diagnosed because my family heard about Celiac and told me to get tested after being sick for months).

My hands down, #1 vote is to drive to Atlanta. What I would give if I had a competent doctor to start with. (My doc didn't run the full panel-which I didn't know; told me to go gluten free before the biopsy, which was five weeks-which is incorrect and negates the point of the biopsy; only took one sample because he was lazy-instead of the "multiple biopsies in multiple locations").

Drive to Atlanta or another good doc, have the FULL blood panel run (including tTG), have her gene tested (HLA DQ2 and HLA DQ8) so that you will almost certainly know *if* it could be a possibility down the road.....I would have given anything to have had a knowledgable doctor who had a clue. Its definitely worth it now, while she is still eating gluten, to have her properly tested.

That is my two cents from another (although previously) Alabama girl.