Enterolab Question

[suburban55]

I've been having GI problems for about three years now which started after the birth of my son. I lost the baby weight and then some. I can't seem to gain weight. Most of my symptoms occur in the morning. I suspected both celiac and/or candida overgrowth as the culprits after colonoscopy and other tests were normal. I then had blood tests done for celiac, which were negative. I then decided to do the Enterolab test for gluten sensitivity which came back positive, but it was a pretty low positive (result was 15. Anything over 10 is considered positive). My question is.........is this really a reliable test? I've been eating gluten free for about 6 days now and I haven't seen a huge improvement. How long should it take before noticing a difference? Also, do most of you eliminate soy at first on the diet? I sometimes wonder if soy bothers me too but it's in some of the gluten-free products I've been eating.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this!

Stephanie

[CarlaB]

I would recommend staying on the diet for two or three months. You might want to eliminate dairy and soy in the beginning as they are also common intolerances.

Be sure you're 100% gluten-free. It's hard to do! Gluten is hidden in so much! But once you learn, it's no longer difficult.

Rather than eating gluten-free products, you might have better luck on whole foods -- meat, eggs, fish, veggies, fruit, potatoes, rice, etc. gluten-free processed food bothers many people, especially in the beginning. I had to eat very simply in the beginning.

If after the two or three months you still see no difference, then I'd start looking again for what else it could be. There are many here who have more than just gluten intolerance, so you can still come here for suggestions on where to look.

If you do have candida overgrowth, which is a possiblity, there is always a reason for it. We don't just get candida overgrowths for no reason, so you'd still want to keep looking for what else might be wrong.

If you suspect candida, start taking a probiotic while you're trying out the diet. Also avoid sugar.

[AndreaB]

We didn't have obvious symptoms so I can't really answer that. Our problems were pretty much intestinal though.

We also scored around 11-15 (except my husband who scored 4 I think). We did the whole panel and are also intolerant to soy. We didn't score over 10 on dairy but both my husband and I came up IgG intolerant to it (through ELISA testing).

Soy and dairy can cause some people a lot of problems.....as well as gluten.

Have you checked all your personal care products, gone over everything you eat with a fine tooth comb?

I would suggest going gluten, soy and dairy free for 6 months and then adding in one at a time giving a week in between and carefully note in a food journal anything that may be coming from that food as far as reactions.

If after that time you still don't feel better and know that you are following the diet to a T, then you would probably want to pursue further testing. I've learned that naturopath/holistic or LLMD's are the best for doing more tests that will try to find the cause of your symptoms rather than giving you something for the symptoms.