Beer Enough For A Positive Result ?

[MrsMH]

Our household became gluten free for our son about 7 months ago (with a few accidents in the 1st couple of months). My son has thrived on the diet (he never tested positive, but he was gluten free for 2 months before testing, we tried the gluten challenge with disastrous results-explosive diarreah and vomit-so we gave up that idea) He did test positive for casein, so we are casein free as well, and he has oxalate and yeast-infection problems as well. My husband has had IBS-like symtoms for many years (15?) bloating, gas, stomach pain, constipation (and the opposite: he used to be on the toilet all the time), depression, arthritic-like problems, chronic headaches, blood in the stool, and rectal pain. Doctors (we used to live in England) mainly steered him towards IBS, and depression, no results there, CT scan showed nothing for bone pain. Anyhow, since the diet he has vastly improved, but still a bit of blood in the stool and rectal pain. When a care package from England arrived with all of his gluten-full favorite treats, he gorged himself for days, and then he was in so much pain he had to go to bed for a couple of days. So, finally he agrees gluten may be the culprit. So he requested a test at the doctor today, but how effective will it be on a gluten free diet ? He does drink beer (mostly every weekend and mostly micro-brewed ale), and still has the occasional sandwich, or burger at a Bar-B-Q... Do you think it is enough for a positive ? I am worried if it is negative he will keep drinking the ale, etc, and possibly damage his health further. His mother(64) has many stomach ailments, heart problems, osteosporis, and now; motor neurone disease. His parents are Irish, by the way, Father passed away 3 years ago. If he doesn't get a positive "Celiac" branding I wont be able to convince him to give up all gluten, especially if he gets diagnosed with something else (isn't it true that many things are related to celiac disease ?) Any advice or thoughts, or others with experience like this ?

Thanks

[ShayFL]

It's tricky because even if he is gorging on gluten for months before the test, it can still be neg. The tests just arent always accurate. Blood tests are notoriously inaccurate. And biopsy is hard because often the damage is "patchy" and they could miss it.

With this said, I would think to go ahead with he blood work. AND get genetic tests to see if he has the Celiac Genes.

You an also opt for Enterolab (which uses stool to test and saliva to do the genetic testing).

[nora-n]

I also think Enterolab , the stool test for gluten and the gene tests for the rest of the family would be the best ones in this case. I do not think occasional glutening is enough for the usual celiac tests as they are calibrated to only be positive when there is severe damage to the villi.

There was even a study where scientists sent blood samples to a lot of different labs, samples of celiacs they just diagnosed by biopsy, and many of the labs only caught half of the celiacs, some caught all. This is because they set the cutoff so high that all positive will probably tottal villous atrophy which is what they want to diagnose.....

Enterolab's ida is different, it is to catch the gluten-intolerant before the villi are gone.

I personnally was gluten-free by accident becasue I was low-carb and I had some gluten at family gatherings and a funeral and I was negative on tests. I thought that antibodies hang around for some weeks and months, they do so in case of thyroid antiboidies, but these celiac antibodies are different, the tests have a high cutoff so they only catch the severe cases.

nora

[purple]

Can't help much. My daughter was recently diagnosed allergic to gluten. Since then I noticed many symptoms in other family members, so we are working on that. My husband has never been able to drink beer b/c he has a mild reaction to it, now we know why...barley.

[April in KC]

Your story sounds similar to ours. Our household went gluten-free when my oldest son and I were diagnosed with Celiac Disease in early 2007. My DH had a long history of GI troubles, but he always insisted/thought that his food triggers were not related to gluten. After we went gluten free at home, he was gluten free at home but still drank the occasional beer and ate sandwiches for lunch.

After several months of this, he started noticing a correlation between when he ate larger amounts of gluten and when he had symptoms. It took him a while to realize that his symptoms often occurred the morning after he had eaten gluten - but he finally made the connection. It's one of those things that he just needed to notice on his own.

Even though he had been gluten "lite," he made an appointment with a GI and had the blood test (TTG is what his GI ordered). (This is a guy who generally avoids doctors.) His TTG came back positive, but a relatively low positive - which his GI interpreted as a consequence of lessening the gluten in his diet. The scope was inconclusive, but the GI was helpful enough to mention that he could think of no other reason the test would be positive....and that it explained why all three of our sons seemed to be gluten-sensitive (it's not just mom's fault).

DH accepted the results and has now been gluten-free for many months. If he had any doubts before, they were erased the first couple of times he had gluten mistakes after going gluten free. He definitely is one whose sensitivity increased after going gluten-free.

I would encourage your DH to keep eating gluten and go get tested. If it comes back negative, just keep feeding him plenty of good gluten-free food at home, and wait to see if he notices symptoms on his own.

If your DH likes beer, can you get some good gluten-free beer for him to try? Where I live, we have Bard's Tale and Redbridge - both of which taste great even to our non-gluten-free friends.

[IMWalt]

Your story sounds similar to ours. Our household went gluten-free when my oldest son and I were diagnosed with Celiac Disease in early 2007. My DH had a long history of GI troubles, but he always insisted/thought that his food triggers were not related to gluten. After we went gluten free at home, he was gluten free at home but still drank the occasional beer and ate sandwiches for lunch.

If your DH likes beer, can you get some good gluten-free beer for him to try? Where I live, we have Bard's Tale and Redbridge - both of which taste great even to our non-gluten-free friends.

HAHA. This your DH sounds like me. I kept trying to blame all my digestive rpoblems on something else. "Must have been the beans, must have been the BBQ, must have been the salad, etc...". My wife liked to say that air gave me gas. I finally started paying attention to when I had D, cramps, bloating etc, and it was always after having something with gluten in it. No gluten, no problems. My blood and biopsy were both negative, but I had been gluten-free for 2 months, then my GI doc didn't tell me to eat a lot of gluten before the tests, so I'm not suprised. I'm gluten-free for good now based on my dietary response. I too am more sensitive now, and can usually tell within a few hours if I ate something I shouldn't have.

As for the gluten-free beer, Redbridge is what I get here, and it is very good.

Walt

[April in KC]

Cheers, Walt. Maybe it's a guy thing, ha ha. Glad you're feeling better now.