Wwyd? Negative - Of Course

[jayhawkmom]

Ok, so the doctor's office just called. Finally, after numerous days of waiting - our baby's tests came back. Of course they are negative. He's been gluten free since October, I knew they would be.

The nurse suggested I no longer restrict him from *anything* other than the foods he has RAST tested positive for - above a class 1. That means no eggs, no peanuts. But, she said that his soy and dairy were so low that we should not be restricting. Well - I know for a FACT he reacts to both dairy and soy.... so I will NOT reintroduce those to him. (in fact, he has terrible diaper rash from eating an EnerG cracker yesterday - SOY!)

Would you, if you were in my position, reintroduce gluten to see if there is a reaction??

I can't even begin to tell you how torn I am about this. If he doesn't HAVE to be gluten free... why force it? However, if his tests were negative (meaning both tTg and EMA were as low as they could be) because he's been gluten free and I reintroduce and he gets sick... I don't think I could live with myself.

What's a mom to do???

[Jestgar]

The nurse suggested I no longer restrict him from *anything* ....

My guess is that you routinely restrict him from things like coffee, alcohol, deep fried foods, etc. What's one more thing that's probably bad for him?

And wouldn't it be easier to give all the kids the same type of food?

Since these tests appear to be very unreliable in small children why don't you just keep him gluten-free until he's 7 or 8 years old? You can always test him later, and you may find that after a few accidental challenges that he's better off without gluten, or that it doesn't seem to make him very ill (but if this is the case you might want to strongly consider a challenge and blood tests when he's older. There's no point in assuming everything's fine when you consider the rest of your family's reaction to gluten).

As long as you make sure all your kids get a good nutritional balance of food, there's no reason to worry that you are depriving them of anything.

[jayhawkmom]

My guess is that you routinely restrict him from things like coffee, alcohol, deep fried foods, etc. What's one more thing that's probably bad for him?

Very good point!!!

Since these tests appear to be very unreliable in small children why don't you just keep him gluten-free until he's 7 or 8 years old?

As long as you make sure all your kids get a good nutritional balance of food, there's no reason to worry that you are depriving them of anything.

As you can see from my sig - my 8.5 year old son was tested for Celiac at 2 and again at 4 due to a myriad of symptoms. It wasn't until "just now" that he had a positive blood test. It all started with us starting to severely restrict the amount of gluten in the house. So, he wasn't eating it every day. As it went longer and longer between times that he was exposed to it... the reactions would come more and more rapidly. (Typical... isn't it?)

So, I'll just continue to feed my baby boy the same foods that we are eating. And, when he's much older and not relying on me for all his meals, we'll see where we need to go to either prove or disprove Celiac.

Thank you!!!

[Jestgar]

Hang in there. There are a lot of people on the same journey.