Questioning Gluten Intolerance

[Echo]

I joined this forum out of pure desperation and hope to benefit from all of your collective experience. My daughter was tested by Entero Lab and her results came back indicating gluten intolerance. The scores were very slight, though. We have had her on a gluten free diet for three weeks and not seen any big change other than a huge grocery bill. She had occasional stomach aches (never severe or any loose stools) and those at least have seemed to have disappeared. My question is whether or not she is truly gluten intolerant. If so, I'll do anything in the world to keep her gluten free but if not it seems like a huge burden for a seven year old with three younger sisters. Here are her test results:

Fecal Antiglidian IgA 10

Fecal Antitissue Transglutaminease IgA 6

Quantitative Microscopic Fecal Fat Score 385

She also had one of he main genes that predisposes to gluten sensitivity and celiac sprue and also a non celiac gene predisposing to gluten sensitivity.

I've heard that everyone is a little sensitive to gluten and wondering if this is the case here.

Thank you all so much for any guidance you can provide.

[confused]

Have u taken her off dairy to see if she feels better off of that. I see you didnt test for casein. She might not be full celiac yet, but some time down the road she could be celiac and have to go off gluten.

You could put her back on gluten and see how she feels, if the symptoms come back then u know gluten is a problem and she needs to go off of it, and if she has one of the genes then it is likely the rest of the kids will have the celiac gene, it might be a good idea to take them all off of gluten and see what happens.

paula

[Echo]

Thank you. I did test her for egg, yeast, soy and cow's milk...all normal. Do you think her gluten levels are high enough to be a current problem? Again, I appreciate the help.

[kbtoyssni]

Just curious why you had her tested if she doesn't have any symptoms? She may be just barely gluten intolerant. I feel that most people start out just a little intolerant and get worse until they finally have so much damage they have celiac. Maybe that's the case here?

[loraleena]

I had heard that abnormal is abnormal. That someone with a low above normal reading could be very sick and someone with a high reading might not have symptoms. My entero was 18 and I was very sick. Not that high compared to a lot of others on here.

[hathor]

You can't tell by the number. Apparently, positive is positive. Someone with a higher score doesn't have a bigger problem. (I think you can compare your own results over time, though, to see if they are improving.)

I do wonder if they have a margin of error on the tests, though. I asked this once and never got a response. I have one 11 result and I don't see a reaction at all. But the food with my other 11 score is the thing I react to the most ...

I would tend to the view that your daughter does have a problem. She had stomach aches which went away when you eliminated the gluten. Plus she has malabsorption, which indicates that something was wrong.

Not all people with gluten intolerance get diarrhea. There are a large number of possible symptoms. If your daughter has improved in any way, physically, emotionally, or behaviorally, that would be confirmation of the test result.

You could also challenge her with gluten if you are really unsure. But I'm hesitant to suggest that with the stomach aches and the malabsorption score.