Whats The Difference Between Celiacs And Gluten Intolerance?

[Krystens mummy]

Hi all thanks for all the help with my last questions about my daughters test results. I have a few other questions for you though. My GP says that most people that are gluten intolerant do not have celiac disease. Does anyone know if the symptoms are the same apart from bowel damage.Does the body still fail to absorb nutrients and can you have dermititis herpetiformis with a gluten intollerance? I'm not sure if my daughter has the dermititis but she has atopic eczema on her face when she eats gluten and if she is exposed to gluten for long enough she gets a chickenpox like rash on her body. The blisters pop on their own (SHE HASN'T LEARNT HOW TO SCRATCH THEM YET!) and go flat then the skin goes scaly not red though and it is intensely itchy for her. However it did clear quite quickly though and ive heard that with DH it can take months

[Fiddle-Faddle]

There are lots of good arguments on this very subject here on this board!

Many insist that the two are totally different due to genetics.

Many insist that gluten intolerance (regardless of genetics), left untreated, usually leads to the very things that are considered "gold-standard" diagnostic standards for celiac disease: dermatitis herpetiformis and villi damage.

I'd be very interested to hear what your daughter's ultimate diagnosis of the chicken-pox-like rash turns out to be. I had a very similar rash (just like you describe only it was PERFECTLY symmetrical on both arms) that I am sure was DH (and it did resolve quite quickly), but by the time it was biopsied, I had been on prednisone for 10 days and off gluten for a month, so that completely screwed up the results.

If your daughter's rash turns out to be something other than DH, I'd love to know what it is, in case I should be researching another type of rash!

I'm wondering if DH is caught and correctly diagnosed very, very early (within days rather than months or years), it might not resolve much, much more quickly?

[Krystens mummy]

There are lots of good arguments on this very subject here on this board!

Many insist that the two are totally different due to genetics.

Many insist that gluten intolerance (regardless of genetics), left untreated, usually leads to the very things that are considered "gold-standard" diagnostic standards for celiac disease: dermatitis herpetiformis and villi damage.

I'd be very interested to hear what your daughter's ultimate diagnosis of the chicken-pox-like rash turns out to be. I had a very similar rash (just like you describe only it was PERFECTLY symmetrical on both arms) that I am sure was DH (and it did resolve quite quickly), but by the time it was biopsied, I had been on prednisone for 10 days and off gluten for a month, so that completely screwed up the results.

If your daughter's rash turns out to be something other than DH, I'd love to know what it is, in case I should be researching another type of rash!

I'm wondering if DH is caught and correctly diagnosed very, very early (within days rather than months or years), it might not resolve much, much more quickly?

[Krystens mummy]

You might be confused with what I just did ignore it I think I pressed the wrong button. I will certainly let you know if she gets it again and we find out what it is. That may not happen though because we have already started a gluten free diet.

[tazallie]

Hi,

This is a topic that really caught my eye. In April I put my daughter on a gluten-free diet after she had the blood test for Coeliacs, but before we got the results. The change in her was dramatic and after the result came back negative I tried her back on gluten with bad results, so I went back to gluten-free diet and went back to my fantastic GP. He agreed she had improved and we decided to leave her on it for a month to see if the improvement contiuned...which it did

Well to cut a long story short he refered us to a specialist who agreed she was Gluten intolerant but he was unsure if she was coeliacs as the IGA??? antibody test hadnt been done (I think thats right the one that can effect the outcome of the test???) anyway he explained that there is no difference in the two except that an intollerance may disappear over time but a ceoliac will have it for life, he explained that you have to be Gluten intolerant to have Coeliacs but you dont have to have Coeliacs to be Gluten intolerant. In fact only something like 10% of Gluten intolerants will have ceoliacs (I think that was the right figure)

Anyway by DD has her biospy in march after we do the challenge so all I know is she is Gluten intollerant and has improved dramatically since april!