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Do I Have Candida Or celiac disease?

Shallyssa

By Shallyssa
in Related Issues & Disorders

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Shallyssa Newbie
Shallyssa
Posted

Hi,

I was diagnosed with celiac disease 16 months ago...based only on blood test! I'm not feeling better..probably worst but I know I'm on a strict gluten-free diet, no cross-contamination, no hidden gluten anywhere... Now I want the biopsy, I have an appointment with a specialist next week for a gastroscopy first...while I'm still on a gluten-free diet. The only thing in my blood test who was positive for celiac disease was my IgA more I don't anything more specifics.

Somebody told me my IgA could have been positive for Candida! Can somebody help me with this..I don't know anything about it! I just took a questionnaire on the Internet and it said if my score was over 183 it mean I probably have it...my score was 253! I tried the spit test - even thought I really don't know if it's reliable or not- and it was positive! I have almost all of they symptoms the had mentioned!

I hope somebody can help me with this??

Thank you

Julie

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Lisa Mentor
Lisa
Posted
Hi,

I was diagnosed with celiac disease 16 months ago...based only on blood test! I'm not feeling better..probably worst but I know I'm on a strict gluten-free diet, no cross-contamination, no hidden gluten anywhere... Now I want the biopsy, I have an appointment with a specialist next week for a gastroscopy first...while I'm still on a gluten-free diet. The only thing in my blood test who was positive for celiac disease was my IgA more I don't anything more specifics.

Somebody told me my IgA could have been positive for Candida! Can somebody help me with this..I don't know anything about it! I just took a questionnaire on the Internet and it said if my score was over 183 it mean I probably have it...my score was 253! I tried the spit test - even thought I really don't know if it's reliable or not- and it was positive! I have almost all of they symptoms the had mentioned!

I hope somebody can help me with this??

Thank you

Julie

This this information may be helpful:

Open Original Shared Link

I would get a copy of your blood work. Some test are more specific to Celiac as noted in the above link.

If you are going to pursue further testing for Celiac Disease, I strongly suggest that you eat gluten. Otherwise, it would effect your accuracy.

Mother of Jibril Enthusiast
Mother of Jibril
Posted

I think it's important to be clear about the difference between celiac disease and "candida."

Celiac disease is an autoimmune reaction to gluten (a delayed hypersensitivity) that results in damage to your intestines. The blood test looks for antibodies like anti-gliaden, endomesial antibodies (EMA) and tissue transglutaminase (ttg). Some are more specific for celiac disease than others, but if any of these tests come back positive you can be sure that your body is hypersensitive to gluten. Going on a 100% gluten-free diet is the best thing you could do for your long-term health.

"Candida" is a general term often used in reference to an imbalance in your gut flora, which can cause a "leaky gut." This is part of the mechanism involved in celiac disease, so I don't want to dismiss it. However... not everyone who has a leaky gut has celiac disease. It's a bit confusing because the symptoms can overlap. IMO, there's a lot of misleading information on the Internet about candida. Some of it might help you, some of it won't. Some of the advice could be downright dangerous. If anyone tells you that it's OK to "cheat" on a gluten-free diet (when you're a diagnosed celiac) run the other way. :blink:

RiceGuy Collaborator
RiceGuy
Posted

As was stated, you'd need to be eating gluten in order to have a chance of an accurate biopsy. And, those chances are basically hit-and-miss. You'd need to be consuming gluten for several weeks at least, because the biopsy looks for damage to the small intestine. Therefore, doing so means purposely causing damage in order to prove it will happen.

However, if your blood has the antibodies, then that's proof of a reaction to gluten, as far as I know. There have been many discussions on this board about how doctors seem to insist on the biopsy before giving the positive diagnosis, and how illogical it seems. So you may actually be one of the few fortunate ones who has a decent, forward thinking doctor.

You might also have candida though. It is quite common to have both, so it would not be surprising in the least. There are many threads on this board about candida, with good advice on how to eliminate it. You may want to look through some of those, and/or post your own questions.

But again, antibodies to gluten mean gluten sensitivity at the very least, so whether or not you have intestinal damage doesn't change the fact that you must maintain a gluten-free diet. Consider yourself very fortunate if you don't have much if any damage.

Gfresh404 Enthusiast
Gfresh404
Posted

My guess is that you can have both. I believe that's what I have. As recent research has shown there is a striking similarity between the structure of gluten and candida. Also if you truly are gluten intolerance, the bad bacteria and yeast will feed off of the gluten. I'd recommend Threelac, it does wonders for me, but some people have told me it really did not help them at all.

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