Hey Guys, New Here.

[Geo]

Well, allow me to introduce myself. I'm a 25 year old male, bodybuilder in good all around shape. I've battled with generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder over the last 2 years and am finally beating this demon on my own without any meds and such. I've also had a very stressful year with thinking about health problems, I've had deaths in my family. Just an all around stressful and crappy year. I've pretty much shaken all of my anxiety and panic symptoms over the last few months, had an echocardiogram done and my heart is fine and now that I know that, I don't have anymore pain or pressure in my chest area, but the damn hardest symptom to get rid of is my stomach discomfort. I've been trying to play the anxiety card with this, but after lowering my GAD and PD considerably, this is still sticking around. While googleing I stumbled across the symptoms of celiac disease, and I have to admit, it fits my situation pretty well. I eat a tone of whole wheat bread, nacho chips, pasta, etc. Over the last 7-8 months when my anxiety was at its highest I started noticeing that my stool always contained undigested food in it, mostly vegetables, but it was like there weren't even digested one bit, I also noticed that sometimes my stool would stick to the toilet bowl, and it would flush right away, I know this is gross but bare with me. I belch a lot and and the odd time get a gagging sensation, and also a burning sensation in my stomach but not in a heart burn type of way... just a general burning. I've also noticed some numbness in my leg from time to time, this could or could not be do to celiac disease, as it's a symptom of anxiety as well. Actually all of these symptoms are related to GAD or stress in one way or another. However, like I said, after lessening my anxiety my stomach problem remains. I've had blood work a few months ago, not for my stomach but just general blood work and it came back fine.

So that's belching

a gagging reflex from time to time

undigest food in stool

stomach burning the odd time

and what appears to be a fatty stool.

I know without a proper diagnosis from my doctor I won't know for sure if I have celiac disease, but after all the doctor visits of the last few years i'm growing tired of hospitals as i'm sure they're growing tired of me. I want to try and eat gluten free for a week or two and see if my stomach begins to change back to normal, either way i'm going to get this checked out soon, but in the mean time i'd like to see if not eating gluten will help. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[Geo]

just bumping this because I can't see it in the forum.

[Puffin]

I know it's hard but I would also eliminate other possible problem foods for at least two weeks since you could not only be having gluten problems but others also. Go to www.finerhealth.com and read.

If you have some positive results and want some professional help then make an appointment with a registered dietitian as it helped me.

If you want some tests I and my family have had good results with enterolab. Just remember tests can only rule the disease in not out. Diet will be your best test.

[jerseyangel]

Hi--I'm glad you found us here

It's possible that your symptoms could point to Celiac. What I would suggest at this point, would be to remain on gluten--do not go gluten free or even gluten lite. Tell your doctor that you would like the complete Celiac Blood Panel done.

It consists of 5 tests, and they are not part of any routine blood testing. That is to say that the blood work that you had done would not have shown anything one way or the other regarding Celiac.

Here is the panel to ask for--

Anti-Gliadin (AGA) IgA

Anti-Gliadin (AGA) IgG

Anti-Endomysial (EMA) IgA

Anti-Tissue Transglutaminase (tTG) IgA

Total Serum IgA

You could, of course, try going gluten-free for a month and see if any of your symptoms get better. Since you mentioned getting checked out at some point, I just wanted you to know that going gluten-free before testing will skew the results. It's important to keep eating gluten up until the testing for accurate results.