Help With Test Results

[KJN]

This is my first post on the message board, but I have been reading them for months. I was hoping someone could help me out and give me some insight on my son's test results. My son is now 2 1/2. When he turned 1, he started to have very frequent bowel movements - average 8 per day. He would develop a terrible diaper rash as well with bleeding. This started out only occuring a couple days per month and has become more frequent since then. He turned 2 in July and since then, has had 8 bowel movements (sometimes more) per day. His stools are soft (not diarrhea). He is in the 90th percentile for height and weight (at leaset at his 2 year check). I took him to a GI doc. Here are his results:

The bloodwork for the Gliadins came out positive. His IgA was 30 and his IgG was 106. The tissue tranglutaminase came out negative. He had a fecal fat test (qualitative) which came out increased. His biopsy which was done when he was 27 months came out negative and the doctor did not see any damage.

Right now they are checking him for pancreatic insufficiency because of the fat found in his stool. The doctor did mention that it could be the beginning of celiacs. If the pancreatic test comes out negative, I am not sure where to go from here. Has anyone else had this situation. Do you think it could be Celiacs or something else?

Thank you so much.

Kim

[seeking-wholeness]

Kim,

Your son sounds a lot like my two boys. They are both very tall (80th to >95th percentile) and "apparently thriving," in the words of their pediatrician, yet they have very soft bowel movements that smell absolutely vile and sometimes turn to diarrhea. Sometimes my 18-month-old poops several times a day, but ususally he goes just once or twice. When he's had gluten by accident, his poop turns either dark brown or bright orange and very quickly gives him a bleeding diaper rash, but when he has "normal" (for him) stools he can sit in them for a couple of hours (like if he goes while we are on a car trip and no one notices) with no trouble at all. Before we all went gluten-free, my older boy lost bowel control a few times, his intestines were so irritated!

My opinion is that your son probably does have celiac disease but that you caught it early enough that the damage is still minor and didn't show up on the biopsy (HOORAY!). You might want to consider ordering a stool test from Open Original Shared Link for him. Most celiac disease-related antibodies remain in the intestinal tract and do not spill over into the bloodstream, so examining a stool specimen will give a clearer picture of exactly what's going on in there. Enterolab can also perform a gene test to determine whether you son carries the gene that would make him susceptible to celiac disease. The results of these tests, coupled with your GI doctor's suggestion that celiac disease may be the problem, should be sufficient to confirm or rule out celiac disease. It is great that you are actively pursuing a diagnosis for your son, and I wish you both good luck in your search!

[KJN]

Sarah,

Thanks for the information. I'm curious...when were your sons diagnosed and by what method? What tests came out positive? They sound so much like my son, especially in regards to the diaper rash. Any information would be helpful.

Thanks,

Kim

[DLayman]

Well I posted a response to this I don't know what happened to it.

This kinda scares me that my son's biopsy came back negatve and we didn't do a blood test.

It's good that you got the blood tests done. Your body doesn't make those antibodies for nothing. I would trust those tests

I am going to endup fighting the doc to get thoseblood tests done if for nothing else but peace of mind,

in the end a gluten-free diet will not hurt anyone. It's achallenge but it will be worth it in the end