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Iga Deficiency = Negative Blood Test

lcarter

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lcarter Contributor
lcarter
Posted

Did you know that if you have IgA Deficiency the blood tests for Celiac may be false-negative, or at the best inconclusive? That's because IgA is what is used as the a marker for the current bloods that are done. Note the 2 following articles:

1) DO WE NEED TO MEASURE TOTAL SERUM IgA TO EXCLUDE IgA DEFICIENCY IN COELIAC DISEASE?

AU Sinclair D; Saas M; Turk A; Goble M; Kerr D SO J Clin Pathol. 2006 Jul;59(7):736-9. Epub 2006 Feb 17.

"Screening for IgA deficiency in patients with coeliac disease is essential because of the increased incidence of IgA deficiency associated with the disease, which usually relies on the estimation of IgA levels in each case."

2) WHAT BLOOD TEST HELP DIAGNOSE CELIAC DISEASE?

Bonzo�K.�Reddick,�MD

Department of Family Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"Two to 3% of patients with celiac disease have selective IgA deficiency. These patients often have falsely negative serum IgA assays (for EMA, tTG, and AGA), so IgG is a diagnostic alternative. In a cross-sectional study, 100% of 20 untreated celiac disease patients with IgA deficiency had positive IgG tests for tTG, AGA, and EMA despite negative IgA tests for the same antibodies. Eleven patients with celiac disease and no IgA deficiency all had positive tTG, AGA, and EMA tests, whether testing for the IgA or IgG forms."

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Crimson Rookie
Crimson
Posted

I'm wondering about this. Does anyone know if enterolab is able to show a deficiency in their tests on IgA???

holiday16 Enthusiast
holiday16
Posted
I'm wondering about this. Does anyone know if enterolab is able to show a deficiency in their tests on IgA???

No they don't, but so many of our family members were tested through enterolab that I began to see a trend that I thought might indicate low IGA I talked with the nurse at Enterolab who agreed so I went to my Dr. and requested the test. Mine came back low, but just barely. My son had his tested and came back normal, but just barely.

The reason I suspected low IGA was because Enterolab says the average postive numer is 45. When I was tested mine came back postive, but only as an 11. My dad's was postive, but only a 14 and yet his ttg was also positive. Then my mother tested negative as a 9, but everything else looked o.k. on her test except she does have a celiac gene. My brother tested the highest of anyone with 22 and a positive ttg. He has a celiac gene as well. My daughter tested at 15 with a positive ttg, fecal fat score of 431 and postive for casein. My son had the lowest possible positive value at 10, but his fecal fat was 1254. He's the one I posted on another thread to you that he has the same genes you do.

With my kids I ordered the most comprehensive test because if your IGA is lower the numbers are not as strong and you end up having to put it in perspective. Even though my son had the lowest postive score he had the highest fecal fat score as well.

Out of all the people tested my mother has been the only one that has not noticed an improvement on the gluten-free diet and she was the one that tested negative. I keep telling her to get her IGA levels tested because if they're fairly normal then she truly is negative and does not need to be on the full diet. If they're low then what is a borderline negative for someone with regular IGA would become a postive result for someone with low. It would be nice if Enterolab could provide adjusted results for if you have lower blood IGA's, but that's just not the way it is and you have to put 2 and 2 together on your own. The only time it shows up really obvious by an Enterolab results would be if you have a true IGA defeciency and the numbers would be so low it would be apparent. That didn't happen with us because we have lower IGA numbers, but not a true deficiency.

Crimson Rookie
Crimson
Posted

Thank you yet again! ^_^ I'm beginning to feel a grand connection with your son. I hope he's a daydreamer.

I've been doing my research. And as I've written before, I am a follower of the Blood Type Diet.

I am a blood type 0+ Non Secreter. And this and my symptoms lead me to believe that I have celiac.

Dr. D'Adamo's research (or the research that he sites) says that non secreters are 200% more likely to develop

celiac. MOSTLY due to an IgA deficiency!

So, I don't see me paying for all these tests if this would be the case.

I assume that, with my situation, I'd be better off checking for IgA deficiency BEFORE I go for the other tests.

It just seems on key. I'm pretty intuitive with myself.

If anyone would want the links for some of this information, I'll go ahead and post them.

Read if you're interested.

Cheers!

Open Original Shared Link),_ABO_and_Secretor_Blood_Types

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

nora-n Rookie
nora-n
Posted

I am blood type 0 too. dunno about secreter status as I am not in the US, or have had blood transfusions as they would have tested this if I needed another transfusion, I think this is routine then but the name is somethng differnent, like Lewis or something.

About enterolab and IgA deficiency, I have seen these questions here before, that the results are misleading incase of IgA deficiency.

nora

holiday16 Enthusiast
holiday16
Posted
Thank you yet again! ^_^ I'm beginning to feel a grand connection with your son. I hope he's a daydreamer.

I've been doing my research. And as I've written before, I am a follower of the Blood Type Diet.

I am a blood type 0+ Non Secreter. And this and my symptoms lead me to believe that I have celiac.

Dr. D'Adamo's research (or the research that he sites) says that non secreters are 200% more likely to develop

celiac. MOSTLY due to an IgA deficiency!

So, I don't see me paying for all these tests if this would be the case.

I assume that, with my situation, I'd be better off checking for IgA deficiency BEFORE I go for the other tests.

It just seems on key. I'm pretty intuitive with myself.

If anyone would want the links for some of this information, I'll go ahead and post them.

Read if you're interested.

Cheers!

Open Original Shared Link),_ABO_and_Secretor_Blood_Types

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

LOL, my son is a huge daydreamer. He has his own site if you want to see him. It's terribly outdated as he's 11 now, but it will give you an idea of his other health issues. It's part of the reason we pursued seeing the GI Dr. the way we did. The second link has more recent pictures with him in:

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

Paulette

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