How Do I Interpret The Results?

[JoanneHoward]

My daughter is 4 soon to be 5. My mothear is a celiac and we have had issues with my daughter for 6weeks old. Todate she have not been diagnosed a celiac. My mother is newly diagnosed in the last 3 years. we just had dblood work done on my daught and these are the results IgG 30, IgA 3, and tissue transglutaminase 14. The results say that it is unlikely she is a celiac. i don't understand where the high IgG comes form if she isn't gluten sensitive??? Her symptoms have not been typical. Cronic constipation form the time she was introduced to formula at 6 weeks the pediatric gastroenterologist we saw asid that she was haveing bowel movements that were so large it would be like us passing a 3" diameter movement. she would be torn and bleeding after she went. this is still and issue 4 years later and she hates going to the bathroom. the only time we say the stool soften was when we removed gluten for a week. as soon as we reintroduced it the painful movements returned. what do I do? Gluten doesnt make her ill and it doesn't stunt her growth or inhibit her development but i believe the has to be some sort of sensitivity ther or we would not have seen the easier bowel movements. i don't know waht to do sincle they have ruled out celiac!!!!!

Help please, Joanne in Peterborough Ontario

[celiac3270]

Normal Bloodtest Results

Antigliadin IgA -- Less than 18

Antigliadin IgG -- Less than 24

EMA -- Reads positive or negative

tTg IgA -- Less than 13

tTg IgG -- Less than 30

Also, certain tests are more accurate than others--in terms of: if a certain test is positive, it means that you likely have it, where as another test, which isn't as accurate doesn't carry much weight.

One thing you should suggest to the doctor is that your daughter might be IgA deficient. 1 in 200 are, and that could make her IgA look normal (as it does). Additionally, many have a naturally high IgA and don't have celiac, so a low IgA seems strange. Talk to your doctor about that. For the IgG, which your daughter tested positive in, that positive reading gives her somewhere between a 20% and 95% chance of having celiac disease. I don't know about the tTG....

If the dr. does not take you seriously and you want to be sure she doesn't have celiac, you can do an endoscopy. It's pretty likely since celiac disease is genetic and it often skips generations.

Also, if you find out it's not celiac, check into other things. A high IgG level can indicate other things: Crohn's disease, parasitic infections, colitis, allergic gastroenteropathy, and lymphoma....according to a book I checked about this. This is in the event of a low IgA...such as in this case.

Good luck

[Guest elysealec]

Hi. My daughter (8) and I both have celiac disease. I was diagnosed last spring and I only had my three children tested for that reason. My daughter had not shown any symptoms other than anxiety. In fact, she was over 9 lbs when born and has consistently been in the 95th percentile since. Her blood levels were higher than your daughters' and I was advised by her pediatrician to just keep an eye on it because her growth was exceptional and she did not show any classic symptoms. I went further and spoke with Dr. Ivor Hill at Wakeforest University and he explained that celiac disease manifests in many different ways and anxiety was one of them. She had a biopsy done in October and was not only positive but had considerable damage to her intestines. After two weeks of gluten-free, it was like her whole personality changed. The anxiety disappeared. I strongly advise to go further and find a pediatric gastroenterologist who has knowledge of celiac disease. Good luck.

Vicki

[Boojca]

Do you know what the "normal" ranges are for the blood tests you had run? The reason I ask is that every lab has it's own norms. For instance, in our test for TTG anything over 30 was positive for celiac disease. But I've heard two other labs norms being 20 and 10, so that is important to know.

Bridget

[JoanneHoward]

thank you so much for the speedy and informative responses! you have given me other avenues i hadn't considered. Bridget asked about the range they used in the tests preformed. The testing site was McMaster university in Hamilton ontario and they are one of the top research hospitals in the area. less than 20 was negative, greater than 25 was positive and 20-25 was borderline. they have typed on the form that " The enzyme tissue transglutaminase has been identified as the major if not sole autoantigen detedted in the IFA Endomycial Antibody assays. Interpretation: Negative IgA antibodies rule out active celiac disease in virtually all cases and dermatitis herpetiformis in approximately 80% of cases. Elevated IgG gladin andtibodies indicate that DH cannot be ruled out. Although the specifity of the antibody is limited."

Does this mean anything to any one?

[celiac3270]

Well, if you have DH, you must have celiac...they go hand-in-hand--you can have celiac and not dh, but you can't have dh without celiac. So that seems strange...anyway...did you mention the possibility of IgA deficiency? Because the IgG is positive....

[scaredparent]

My son is 20 months old and all of his test came back negitive but we had positive dietary change. I say if it makes them better do it. Put him on the diet hope for the best.

[celiac3270]

A good number here do not have an official diagnosis--either because they tried the diet, found it helped, and didn't want to go back to gluten to get tested, or because they got negative testing, tried the diet anyway, and found it worked for whatever reason...I agree that if it works, it doesn't matter what the tests show, but that's the way to eat.