So I Went To The Dr Today

[horsesjapan]

and got the "well, celiac is pretty rare, we should rule out some other things first" line. At least she listened and didn't totally blow it off. She's a PA, said she usually sees the cold/cough patients (don't know why they scheduled me with her other than she probably had the only open appts, hate the military care system) and that she would have to set me up with my primary care doc to follow up on everthing, but she ordered some bloodwork just to see how everything is (CBC, anemia, etc), plus a thryoid panel, and a urine test. She said lab results would be back over the course of the next two weeks, so I"m guessing I won't see my PCM till then. She said she would push for some food allergy testing based on family history. So I guess we'll see how it goes. I was really hoping for the celiac panel today so I could go gluten free and see how I feel. But I dont' want to start now if there is a chance the Dr. will run a celiac panel in two weeks. I think she wants to chalk my GI symptoms up to IBS due to anxiety. I do have anxiety, but if it is related to gluten then all the zoloft in the world won't cure it.

[ravenwoodglass]

Welcome to the boards. Your PA was less than worthless. To put it bluntly. Celiac is actually very common but some folks stop learning the minute the diploma is handed to them if they can get away with it.

I would suggest that you spend as much time as you can here and that you throughly check out the home page and other sites like www.csa.org. Then print out articles that are from recognized medical forums, the NIH for one has a lot of good stuff. Take those with you to your next appointment to try and educate those folks.

You need to bear in mind that even the blood tests and biopsies miss many of us. So be prepared to try the diet no matter what the testing shows. You don't need a doctors permission to do the diet and being gluten free will only effect testing for gluten intolerance or celiac.