Looking For Experienced Minds -- Does He Or Doesn't He?

[w919oct]

Hi, pugluver (LOVE the name!! )

Gluten intolerance is not an allergy. People who are gluten intolerant actually do have the same response (i.e., NOT a histimine response) as people who are celiac, and, unless they have a separate wheat allergy, will have negative allergy tests. The only official difference at this time is the villi damage.

If celiac is officially diagnosed by damaged intestinal villi, then what do you call it when all the symptoms are present and the villi are on their way to being damaged, but the damage is either not yet present or else not UNIFORMLY present (i.e., patchy, and therefore possible to miss)?

That is what the doctors have been calling, "gluten intolerance." In that type of scenario, gluten intolerance is just early-stage celiac.

If somebody gets mild symptoms from eating peanuts, they are allergic to peanuts. Nobody says, "Oh, let's wait until they have a full-blown anaphylactic reaction before we call it an allergy, and until then, it's just an intolerance."

Gluten intolerance can and does lead to other autoimmune disorders and cancer, because celiac IS a form of gluten intolerance. Just look at the huge numbers of people who have all the symptoms of celiac (but no positive biopsy, therefore no "official" diagnosis") AND diabetes, autoimmune thyroid disease, RA, MS, lupus, fibromyalgia, IBS, etc.

Even more compelling is the fact that DH (dermatitis herpetiformis) is also a definitive diagnosis of celiac disease--but many DH sufferers do NOT have villi damage and some don't even have intestinal symptoms. This strongly suggests that in celiac disease, the villi don't always get damaged, that the immune system can and does target anything and everything, from GI tract to thyroid to joints to pancreas to __________(fill in blank).

So, hopefully, someday, the researchers will conclude that looking for villi damage in order to conclusively diagnose celiac is ridiculous, as the immune system just might be targeting something other than villi, with gluten/celiac as the trigger.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, poops like a duck....