Father In Law Appears Celiac Too, But Tested Neg.

[KierasMom]

Hi there! My hubby & daughter (4.5 years) are both celiac and have been gluten free for over 2 years. After their diagnosis, hubby's parents were also tested, and both came back negative. However, my father in law has had digestive problems for all his life, ranging from diarrhea, cramping, bloating, constipation, lactose intolerance, plus depression, fatigue, and many others. My husband & I feel that he simply must have celiac. The in laws did a "loose" diet challenge for a month. Loose, meaning they were not strict at all and probably had lots of cross contamination to boot. They claimed to feel a bit better but no major changes.

They were just here over the holidays and observing my father in law and symptoms which seem so obvious to us, was almost physically painful for both of us. However, he is 72 and stubborn. Is there anything else we can or should do? My husband has had several heart to hearts with him about the issue, but FIL refuses to accept the possibility. We just want him to have the best life possible, and not suffer uneccesarily.

Is it even possible for my hubby to have Celiac, and neither of his parents have it at all?

[par18]

Were your husband's parents "gene" tested or "anti-body" tested or both. Does your husband possess either of the Celiac genes (DQ2 or DQ8)? What I am saying is that either or both parents could possess a gene and never develop symptoms. Because the FIL has symptoms then I would not be surprised if he has at least one of the genes. Whether or not he would test postive for something like anti-bodies could be the result of the "loose" attempt at the diet. That said if he is of the opinion that regardless of "any" testing results he would not accept the diet then I don't know what more you could do. To me going about the diet in anything less than a 100% effort for at least a short period of time is of little or no value at all. In fact doing the diet less than 100% would probably make any diagnosis of Celiac difficult if not impossible. The first thing I would want to know is how "truthful" your FIL would be in the degree of his symptoms and whether or not he seems to get relief when avoiding something like gluten. Denial and/or being stubborn are probably the biggest hurdles any family member can encounter when trying to help a loved one.

More than anything else I try to present a positve attitude when talking to family members about my change in lifestyle. If people can see that I have not let this "control" my life then maybe they would be less hesitant to try the diet at the onset of Celiac type symptoms. Hope this helps.

Tom

[hathor]

There is a rather significant percentage of false negatives with the blood test. Is that what they had?

If they are amenable, they could try Enterolab testing which is more sensitive and isn't messed up with attempts to go gluten free. (If gluten has been eaten in the previous year, the tests are said to be valid.) However, I don't know how anyone can force a test on another adult.

Plenty of people here got negative blood tests for years until they finally went positive. Meanwhile damage was being done and they felt lousy. The fact that your in-laws felt a bit better even though they weren't strict with the diet tells you something, I think.

Here is an article on the subject. I don't know if it will change their opinion or not, but I guess it is worth a try:

https://www.celiac.com/articles/759/1/Early...e-MD/Page1.html

To answer your question, it is possible for your husband to have celiac and neither of his parents to have it, though. Many more people have the celiac genes than have celiac.

[aikiducky]

It's quite common for adults to have negative blood tests and still to have a positive biopsy. At least, that's what I've heard here in Holland.

Pauliina

[Ken70]

Hi there! My hubby & daughter (4.5 years) are both celiac and have been gluten free for over 2 years. After their diagnosis, hubby's parents were also tested, and both came back negative. However, my father in law has had digestive problems for all his life, ranging from diarrhea, cramping, bloating, constipation, lactose intolerance, plus depression, fatigue, and many others. My husband & I feel that he simply must have celiac. The in laws did a "loose" diet challenge for a month. Loose, meaning they were not strict at all and probably had lots of cross contamination to boot. They claimed to feel a bit better but no major changes.

They were just here over the holidays and observing my father in law and symptoms which seem so obvious to us, was almost physically painful for both of us. However, he is 72 and stubborn. Is there anything else we can or should do? My husband has had several heart to hearts with him about the issue, but FIL refuses to accept the possibility. We just want him to have the best life possible, and not suffer uneccesarily.

Is it even possible for my hubby to have Celiac, and neither of his parents have it at all?

Good luck getting your FIL to do a gluten free diet strictly. My own father, after suffering needlessly for years now, and having been positively assured of gluten intolerance by Enterolab still won't strictly do the gluten free diet. He keeps telling me his D isn't getting better and that he is doing a gluten free diet but "oh - I didn't know fake beer has gluten in it".

He has been given every test imaginable including a full CAT scan recently and the doctors have found nothing else wrong with him. He is stubborn and a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to our medical system. I can appreciate what you are going through. I have stopped going along with all of his additional testing and have emphatically told him that all of his answers are in the foods he chooses to eat. If he wants to get well he can but it is entirely up to him. No doctor is going to be able to do a thing for him.

Good luck! Sounds like you will need it.