Transglutaminase #'s

[amberleigh]

I saw a few posts where people mentioned specific numbers from blood tests so I just called the nurse at my GI's office (who is a huge ditz, BTW) and she said my transglutaminase number was 30 and that anything greater than 8 is positive for celiac disease.

What is the range on this? Is 30 relatively high, medium, or low? What does this really mean?

I'm obviously in denial about celiac disease b/c I've been feeling pretty good the last 2 weeks (even on gluten foods) so I'm just trying to educate myself as best I can. Thanks!

[DingoGirl]

Welcome, Amber.

TTG is an antibody manufactured to attack gluten (in case you didn't know). In "normal" people the number will measure from zero to less than 10, I believe. Thirty is definitely a sign of Celiac.....

When mine was measured.....oh, I was so, so sick. My TTG measured "greater than 100" and they STOP counting after 100....so who knows what it really was. But it was rather alarming. At the six-month mark, it was down to 17, and at the one-year mark it was THREE! To say I feel like an entirely different human is quite an understatement.

I suspect the numbers become higher the longer one has undiagnosed Celiac.....but I'll let the experts pipe in here.

I hope you don't stay in denial about Celiac for too long......it'll catch up to you, and the younger you are at time of dx, and the sooner you remove all gluten, the better off you'll be. I was 44, lost an inch in height (my spine is a mess, bone density loss and many other things) and grew to live with an incalculable depression and fatigue toward the end.