Strange Symptoms

[bstack22]

I'm going for an endoscopy tomorrow morning to confirm whether or not I'm Celiac. My problems first came about 6 years ago. I had diarrhea for a couple of months and lost 30-40 pounds in that time. The doctor just told me at that point to lay off gluten and then slowly add them back in to see what happened. I went relatively gluten-free for a month or so and then added different levels of gluten intake. First itr was a breaded chicken cutlet, and eventually I made my way back to sandwiches, pizza, the whole shebang.

The weight all came back (about 180 lbs). No health problems for 6 years, not even diarrhea. About 6 months ago I had another flareup for a few weeks and I dropped about 10 lbs. I've stayed stable since June or so. But my blood tests from 2 weeks ago came back positive, when i had another small flareup.

Is it normal to have symptoms like this? To be totally fine for years, even with a full gluten intake (I had sandwiches virtually every work day since 1998)? Sorry for the long post, I'm just trying to be more aware. Thanks.

[tom]

Hehe the LONG posts are PAGES long.

I'm no expert, just a long-suffering celiac who's read a lot online, but i've never seen a situation where after the diarrhea begins, the person is able to do what u did.

To me, the endoscopy test seems pretty subjective. Diff docs can interpret results differently. I've read how much a difference there can be in biopsies taken from diff spots. It's definitely NOT a pass/fail test to confirm whether you are celiac. It DOES definitely confirm whether the doc found damaged villi.

I put more faith in the genetic HLA-typing to see whether the celiac genes (DQ2, DQ6) are there or not.

[stef-the-kicking-cuty]

Hi tom,

i heard something completely different. With some people it can take more than 10 years until all the symptoms come back, so 6 years isn't a long time. It depends on the person. Once you go glutenfree and your intestines healed completely and you would reintroduce gluten, it could take a few days for the first symptoms, weeks or even years. I already heard about people who were symptom free for more than 10 years and then the whole trouble started again. So it actually is possible.

Stef