Confused About Symptoms After Going Gluten Free

[all-in-the-family]

Hi! This is my first post!

Ok, so I am going to the doctor today to see if I might have celiac disease. 3 people in my family have it, and I suspect a few others have it also and have not been diagnosed.

I read extensively through the symptoms and I have all of them -chronic stomach pain, feeling tired, stomach swells, feeling anemic, d. etc...

So, I wanted to experiment and I went gluten-free for 3 days. I was still having d, but it was becoming less and less painful and then on the 3rd day -I felt really great! That and my stomach became totally flat. So I was convinced! However, now I'm not so sure.

I knew that I am going to be tested so I thought I should make sure to have some gluten. So, I ate a hamburger. My stomach got a little bigger... and there was a very minimal amount of pain, but nothing like usual! (Usually, after I eat a hamburger it feels like I'm dying. It's like the feeling of needing to throw up but can't (this goes on for hours) and then the next day having d.)

So, should I go ahead and go to the doctor? (It's so expensive ) Or does this mean with high probability, I don't have celiac disease? Any thoughts?

[gfmolly]

So, should I go ahead and go to the doctor? (It's so expensive ) Or does this mean with high probability, I don't have celiac disease? Any thoughts?

I know it is expensive, but if you do have celiac, it is important to know so that you may make a lifelong diet change. If you go undiagnosed, you may feel like you can have gluten occasionally and it will do long-term damage to your body, not to mention possibly trigger other autoimmune diseases.

It sounds like there has been some damage done to the small intestines already, and the fact that removing gluten helped you improve is really good news. As hard as this may be, you need to stay on gluten until you have the testing done, so that the results are not skewed. Also, if you can make sure to get a recommendation for a good GI doc that is knowledgable of celiac disease that will keep the frustration level down that many of us have faced with misdiagnoses.

Best wishes.

Terri