Anyone?

[tuffnikki]

Hi! I'm new here. I've been having lots of problems and suspecting celiac for a while now.

When I tell people my symptoms they look at me strangely.

I was wondering if any of you could relate?

sometimes when i eat certain foods, my stomach will bloat up and ache and it will go through my back and sometimes up my back a little bit. I get really nausiated and sometimes it makes me throw up. The only thing that i have found that will help it is sometimes a heating pad. I've went to the ER once because i was hurting and i wanted to know what was wrong...they didn't do any testing just told me it was a stomach flu. But it happens frequently sometimes happening in "season" so to speak.

I'm not sure if this is related but my immune system is awful. I get everything that comes around and have a hard time gaining weight. I'm only 23 and weigh 89 pounds. I eat all the time just can't gain weight. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Thanks for the help!

[GeoffCJ]

Hi! I'm new here. I've been having lots of problems and suspecting celiac for a while now.

When I tell people my symptoms they look at me strangely.

I was wondering if any of you could relate?

sometimes when i eat certain foods, my stomach will bloat up and ache and it will go through my back and sometimes up my back a little bit. I get really nausiated and sometimes it makes me throw up. The only thing that i have found that will help it is sometimes a heating pad. I've went to the ER once because i was hurting and i wanted to know what was wrong...they didn't do any testing just told me it was a stomach flu. But it happens frequently sometimes happening in "season" so to speak.

I'm not sure if this is related but my immune system is awful. I get everything that comes around and have a hard time gaining weight. I'm only 23 and weigh 89 pounds. I eat all the time just can't gain weight. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Thanks for the help!

Sounds like it could be a suspect. I went through a lot of testing to try and figure things out, but you can very simply try a gluten free diet for a few weeks. If you feel better, then you know you are on the right track. Some people stop there. I personally wanted to know as precisely as I could what was wrong with me, so I did blood testing, and endoscopy, and Enterolab testing. Expensive and a pain, but I appreciated, after years of false diagnosis, a diagnosis that I felt relatively certain would be accurate.

Good luck!

Geoff

[lonewolf]

Welcome!

You certainly sound like you could have a problem with gluten. Ask your doctor to run the Celiac Panel (blood test) for you. Make sure he runs the whole panel - all 5 tests. Hopefully someone will come on here and tell you the exact names of all 5 tests, I'm not sure I'd get it right. Anyway, I'd start with that. After the test, you can either wait to get a biopsy or just try the gluten free diet. Some people need a firm diagnosis, while others are convinced by positive results from the diet. There's always the chance that you could have gluten intolerance without Celiac Disease, which still requires a gluten-free diet, but won't show positive in any traditional test.

[jerseyangel]

Here are the tests in the Celiac Panel--

Anti-Gliadin (AGA) IgA

Anti-Gliadin (AGA) IgG

Anti-Endomysial (EMA) IgA

Anti-Tissue Transglutaminase (tTG) IgA

Total Serum IgA

Just make sure not to cut down on gluten before the test, if you decide to have it. You need to be eating gluten--if not you will skew the results

Best of luck to you.

[CMCM]

Here are the necessary blood tests...I copied this from Danna Korn's www.glutenfreedom.net site.

Blood: The blood test for celiac disease is looking for the following :

AGA (antigliadin) IgA

AGA (antigliadin) IgG

EMA (antiendomysial)

tTG (anti-tissue transglutaminase)

Total serum IgA

Genetics testing - DQ2, DQ8