My Blood Tests

[pixiegirl]

To recap my story, 8 years of digestive problems, supposedly have IBS, chronic diarrhea. I go to my doctor and get tested for celiac 3 weeks ago, right after I have the test I start to eat totally gluten free and in less then a week every single symptom I've had is magically gone.

Then the doctor calls me up and tells me all my blood work is totally normal (I had lots done) and that the tests for celiac are all negative. I asked that they send the test results to me and I got them today. I'd like to know if anyone can help me understand them.

The tests ordered were: endomysial iga, gliadin abs, reticulin abs.

this is what the results say:

endomysial iga: negative

gliadin abs, gliadin igg ab: 2.5 (negative is less then 25)

gliadin iga ab: 5.1 (negative is less then 25)

reticulin abs: negative (at 1:20 dilution)

So it seems like every test I had was very very negative, right? How does one explain the change I had by taking gluten out of my diet? How do I find out if I can eat gluten or not?

Susan

[Guest jhmom]

Susan, I too had negative blood work, my doctor told me that it is it takes time for a disease to show up in labs, etc and apparently for some us it takes longer than others !

If you had such dramatic results being on the gluten-free I would stay that way as that is a test in itself. Have you explained your gluten-free results to your doc? I would hope that he would accept them, some doc do and some don't I guess. Ultimately it's up to you, do you want to "wait" on this disease to show up in labs or test results and remain in pain or enjoy your reclaimed health?

In my opinion (as I had both) Negative blood test and negative biopsy does NOT mean you do not have celiac disease, but an improvement on the diet means your body apparently cannot tolerate gluten.

I wish you well.....

[tarnalberry]

Likely you simply don't have enough damage for the blood tests to come up positive. But the diet is a test in and of itself. If eating apples always made you feel sick, would you keep eating apples? No. If you're comfortable and confident in the results of the diet, stick with it. (You can also look into other testing methods like York's tests and Enterolab's tests.)