Gastro Appt< Help

[BemLmom3]

I need some advice please!!!! First off, how long for RAST results to come back and how accurate are they? Second, my almost 4 yr old daughter had her appt with Gastro today. They are doing RAST and claim she needs the biopsy and blood tests after a month long gluten challenge, she has been strictly gluten-free for 3 weeks and she should of gained something in 3 weeks?????? Okay so if I already know she has a gluten intolerance whats the point of the tests and month long torture. Also are they even accurate in a 4yr old???? The most important issue right now is her weight gain. Once she went gluten-free all other symptoms almost immediately went away. How long before I see a true wight gain? Thanks for any help, I as a mom want to do whats best for my kid, like everyone else here.

Sharon

[Sailing Girl]

Hi Sharon,

Blood tests and biopsies are *extremely* unreliable in young children and will be even more unreliable in your daughter since she's been off gluten for a few weeks already. IMHO, there's absolutely no point in torturing her for a month and then putting her through a medical procedure that's likely to yield a false negative. You got your answer when she went gluten-free and her symptoms went away.

It took awhile for my daughter (now six) to get back on the growth curve, but it did happen eventually. She's still petite (so am I, so she comes by it naturally), but she's right in the middle of the charts now and she's not even the shortest child in her class anymore!

I know it's hard to wait, but your daughter *will* gain and she *will* grow! Keeping gluten away from her is the best thing you can do for her.

Jane

[fkewatson]

Hi - My 4 year old son had two Celiac blood panels come back normal, 1 normal RAST IgE blood test and a normal genetic Celiac panel...normal for Celiac, that is. Upon further review from an HLA expert, it was further interpreted as a genetic profile for gluten intolerance (DQ2 & DQ6). He has since had an allergist perform skin testing for all foods and he reacted with the wheat. So testing is not very reliable. We did not do the scope. I figured that if we scoped and it showed damage, we go on the diet. If we scope and it did not show damage, we had to try the diet, anyway, to see if he improved clinically.

So we went on the diet about 17 weeks ago. Three weeks usually isn't enough time. It took 11 weeks to begin to see any improvement with my son. I know this is going to be life-long for him, and that's OK. It does get easier. I remember the first 3 weeks feeling like 3 months.

RAST testing results for us took about 2 weeks to be returned. But please don't hang your hat on RAST IgE testing. If your child is improving clinically, you have your answer.

[ryebaby0]

RAST testing is more like a arrow pointing in a direction than a street sign with a name, if you get my drift. You can have an elevated RAST result and have no clinical symptoms (and are therefore not considered allergic); allergists usually rely on reactions more than test results. My son RAST-tested positive for eggs (while being tested for a bazillion other things inpatient) and the first question was "does he react to them?" . 3 years later when we wanted to see if he was still allergic, his allergist declined repeating the RAST test and opted for a gradual, controlled re-introduction. He doesn't react to eggs anymore, at all, and the doctors say a RAST test wouldn't really tell them anything they don't already know.