Youngest Age For Reliable Blood Test?

[dandelionmom]

My youngest was "too young" for the Celiac test when my other daughter was diagnosed. She's now 15 months old. Does that sound old enough for a reliable test? She doesn't have the symptoms my other daughter does but she never has solid bms and she's pretty fussy and not a good sleeper. So I'm worried (what else is new?!).

[Juliet]

Depending on who you talk to, it's either 5 or 7 years old. This doesn't mean your daughter won't test positive; my son tested very positive at 2, but he was VERY ill and probably wouldn't be alive today if he hadn't been diagnosed. So, you can give her the test if she's eating gluten regularly, but if it's negative, it doesn't mean she is necessarily clear. At this age, the best diagnosis is to try the diet and see if there's any improvement. But then again, if you want an official diagnosis, it will be difficult to get later on.

[Ursa Major]

Juliet is right about the age for the blood test (and even then it still isn't very reliable). Why not try the blood test now. If it comes back negative, try the diet and test with Enterolab! They are very reliable, no matter what the age.

Personally, I wouldn't feed a child gluten until she gets extremely ill and has severe damage. Your daughter has typical celiac disease symptoms now. Fussiness, not sleeping well and semi-liquid or liquid bowel movements are all pretty good indicators that she shouldn't be eating gluten. Especially with an older sibling with celiac disease.

[Celena]

this all concerns me a lot because in two weeks DDs are getting a blood test. dd1 is almost 3yo but dd2 is just over 1 and a half. do you think there is any hope of a positive test on the little one? or is she just too young? especially considering they have both been off G for 4 months before reintroducing 4 weeks ago.

[happygirl]

From Dr. Fasano's website (www.celiaccenter.org)

How accurate are the celiac blood tests?

The current diagnostic tests for celiac disease are very accurate, particularly when tTG and anti-endomysial antibodies are elevated. The isolated presence of anti-gliadin antibodies does not necessarily imply that the subject is affected by celiac disease, with the exception of children under the age 2 in which tTG and EMA may not be present.

Here are two differing viewpoints https://www.celiac.com/articles/16/1/Are-th...-IgA/Page1.html

Edited to add "Testing for celiac-related antibodies in children less than 5 years old may not be reliable." from Open Original Shared Link

All of this doesn't mean that you can't get a positive. Many are dx'ed under the age of 5. But if its a negative, its not as strong of a negative as an older child.

[Ursa Major]

this all concerns me a lot because in two weeks DDs are getting a blood test. dd1 is almost 3yo but dd2 is just over 1 and a half. do you think there is any hope of a positive test on the little one? or is she just too young? especially considering they have both been off G for 4 months before reintroducing 4 weeks ago.

If your daughters were off gluten for four months, then eating gluten again for four weeks will likely result in both of them having negative blood work, even if they have celiac disease. At this point I am afraid that the only accurate testing would be with Enterolab, as their test would still be accurate up to a year after eliminating gluten.

Especially with young children, after they have healed it could take a long time, sometimes years, for the villi to be destroyed again to the point of testing positive. You don't want to go there!

[Darn210]

. . . So, you can give her the test if she's eating gluten regularly, but if it's negative, it doesn't mean she is necessarily clear. . .

Just wanted to point out that immediate family members are never really in the clear. You can be diagnosed at any age and you should plan on regular screenings . . . unless you've already taken her gluten free.

My kid's GI had this to say about bloodwork: Lots of kids have false negatives because the limits were established based on data from adult patients. (I don't think they've really studied it from a standpoint of establishing data/limits from kids).