The Difference Between Gluten Free And Celiacs

[Malcolm]

Hi ,

I have been gluten free for 1 week now and feel some major changes (like not sneezing as much ,less gas and no blocked nose ) .

I am wondering if is just a glutne intollenerance or a celiac disease ? what the difference does one cause the other or how does it work ?

If you are gluten intollerant does it mean you have celiacs disease ? or not.

any suggestions will be appreciated.

regards

Malcolm

[ravenwoodglass]

Hi Malcom,

Welcome to the board. Have you had any testing done? If not start eating gluten again immediately and get the celiac panel done. Your doctor can do this for you, it is a blood test. The Gold Standard in the US for diagnosis of celiac is a biopsy of the small intestine in which damage is found. However there are risks for a false negative with these tests.

The question of the difference between intolerance and Celiacs is very complicated. And not everyone agrees. I personally think they are presentations of the same disease with perhaps different organs effected more severely.

Both are treated the same, life long strict adherance to the gluten free diet. If you feel better gluten free, see a resolution of problems and then those problems reappear when you injest gluten, sometimes in really small amounts (like a crumb in a butter dish someone else has used) then that is a real good indication that you should be gluten free. You don't need a doctors permission to eat gluten free but if a doctors diagnosis is important to you, for any reason, then do get back on it and get to the doctor for testing.