Question About Labs And What To Do Now... :(

[siligurl]

Hiyas! Grrr-- I'm soo frustrated and any help you can offer is needed and appreciated. I have chronic health problems for about 3+ years now, all of which are diverse and have "stumped" my doctors. ALL of them "could" be related to celiac disease, although none of my doctors are savvy enough to go there. A pediatrician friend recommended I be tested for gluten sensitivity and these are my labs:

IGA = 64 (range: 73-358)

IGM = 88 (53-251)

IGG = 1100 (649-1634)

Icteric index = 0

Lipemia index = 24 (0-50)

TTG IGA <3

Gliadin IGA <3

IGA, QN = 77

The question is this: She says based on the labs and what I was eating at the time (fruit and granola bars), that she can't say really one way or another if I have gluten sensitivity/celiac disease and that I need to see a specialist. BUT, I'm active duty military and CAN'T see anyone for this for probably a year due to me moving soon and other issues (apparently, having chronic pain, fatigue, etc makes you a "problem"). What are your thoughts-- do I need to go gluten free and see if there's improvement while I wait for a better time to see an expert... who I suppose may or may not actually help... I guess I'm really asking whether your labs have to scream celiac disease or if they can be subtle...?

Your thoughts??? I am just sooo frustrated with everything. Years of pain, fatigue, chronic health issues have left me depressed and suicidal (not now!!), and I just truly believe there is an underlying culprit. Either that, or I'm one of the unluckiest people alive. (Sample of health history: hypothyroidism, liver damage, gall bladder removed due to complete failure w/o prior history of gall bladder disease, depression, fatigue, chronic illness/infections, "fogginess", mouth ulders, joint pain for YEARS, and am now getting a CT on back due to back problems to include neuropathy, etc)

Thanks for listening, and thanks for answering in advance!

Jennifer

[lizard00]

Hi and Welcome

The first thing I noticed is that your total IgA is low. This has a direct bearing on the outcome of your labwork, since all of your tests are IgA based. Basically, your results are going to be negative because you don't make enough IgA. You can have them run the IgG versions of the tests, and if that comes back elevated, it's a good indicator that you could have celiac.

Otherwise, you could just try going gluten-free to see if it helps all of your symptoms.

[tarnalberry]

yup - since you are IgA deficient, you really can't tell, from your tests which are all IgA based, if you've got higher levels of antibodies. you'd have to be retested, so that they can look for antibodies you are not already short of.

[Scout8501]

Hiyas! Grrr-- I'm soo frustrated and any help you can offer is needed and appreciated. I have chronic health problems for about 3+ years now, all of which are diverse and have "stumped" my doctors. ALL of them "could" be related to celiac disease, although none of my doctors are savvy enough to go there. A pediatrician friend recommended I be tested for gluten sensitivity and these are my labs:

IGA = 64 (range: 73-358)

IGM = 88 (53-251)

IGG = 1100 (649-1634)

Icteric index = 0

Lipemia index = 24 (0-50)

TTG IGA <3

Gliadin IGA <3

IGA, QN = 77

The question is this: She says based on the labs and what I was eating at the time (fruit and granola bars), that she can't say really one way or another if I have gluten sensitivity/celiac disease and that I need to see a specialist. BUT, I'm active duty military and CAN'T see anyone for this for probably a year due to me moving soon and other issues (apparently, having chronic pain, fatigue, etc makes you a "problem"). What are your thoughts-- do I need to go gluten free and see if there's improvement while I wait for a better time to see an expert... who I suppose may or may not actually help... I guess I'm really asking whether your labs have to scream celiac disease or if they can be subtle...?

Your thoughts??? I am just sooo frustrated with everything. Years of pain, fatigue, chronic health issues have left me depressed and suicidal (not now!!), and I just truly believe there is an underlying culprit. Either that, or I'm one of the unluckiest people alive. (Sample of health history: hypothyroidism, liver damage, gall bladder removed due to complete failure w/o prior history of gall bladder disease, depression, fatigue, chronic illness/infections, "fogginess", mouth ulders, joint pain for YEARS, and am now getting a CT on back due to back problems to include neuropathy, etc)

Thanks for listening, and thanks for answering in advance!

Jennifer

If you are active duty military, you may be discharged from the military if they discover that it's Celiac. My boyfriend teaches ROTC, and he had a cadet diagnosed with Celiac and they had to disqualify him permanently. There is no getting around Celiac in the military, not even with a waiver. So think about cutting gluten from your diet, if you can, and seeing if that helps. Eating MRE's will not help if you have celiac disease though, it is loaded with msg. Hope everything works out for you.

[siligurl]

If you are active duty military, you may be discharged from the military if they discover that it's Celiac. My boyfriend teaches ROTC, and he had a cadet diagnosed with Celiac and they had to disqualify him permanently. There is no getting around Celiac in the military, not even with a waiver. So think about cutting gluten from your diet, if you can, and seeing if that helps. Eating MRE's will not help if you have celiac disease though, it is loaded with msg. Hope everything works out for you.

Thank you... My friend (a pediatrician) thinks I may have additional food allergies, so I'm trying-- bless it, it's hard!!-- an elimination diet to see what ALL I may be allergic too.

Celiac's to the best of my knowledge doesn't prevent continuing service; many conditions which preclude accessions are not disqualifying if you're already in... although I just checked the reg and don't see it listed as preventing accessions. You would think, though, that it would be disqualifying because I've heard several people who went gluten free who had even a little gluten send them into terrible distress. Something about your body not having any more tolerance for the stuff once you are gluten free.

Thanks, Jennifer

[gfb1]

Thank you... My friend (a pediatrician) thinks I may have additional food allergies, so I'm trying-- bless it, it's hard!!-- an elimination diet to see what ALL I may be allergic too.

Celiac's to the best of my knowledge doesn't prevent continuing service; many conditions which preclude accessions are not disqualifying if you're already in... although I just checked the reg and don't see it listed as preventing accessions. You would think, though, that it would be disqualifying because I've heard several people who went gluten free who had even a little gluten send them into terrible distress. Something about your body not having any more tolerance for the stuff once you are gluten free.

Thanks, Jennifer

good luck; just a few thoughts.

1) you are indeed low in IgA; however being "IgA deficien" has very specific clinical meaning. with only that info, there is not telling if you are clinically deficient... or just low.

2) msg (monosodium glutamate) is NOT gluten and should not present a problem for most celiacs (due to gluten issues)... however some folks are sensitive to msg and can have reactions.

be careful out there.

[Scout8501]

good luck; just a few thoughts.

1) you are indeed low in IgA; however being "IgA deficien" has very specific clinical meaning. with only that info, there is not telling if you are clinically deficient... or just low.

2) msg (monosodium glutamate) is NOT gluten and should not present a problem for most celiacs (due to gluten issues)... however some folks are sensitive to msg and can have reactions.

be careful out there.

I know that msg is not gluten, and maybe I should have said the msg statement a little differently. It does not contain gluten, but there any many people out there who are celiac, and do have problems with msg. I was just pointing that out with MRE's and the military. I don't know what your job is in the military, but I know many people who go out for field training or exercises are given MRE's. I guess it was more of a heads up. My apologies...

If being celiac doesn't prevent continuing service, then that's great! I just know that those interested in joining are disqualified. I wasn't sure if it was grounds for medical discharge or anything, and again that was just a heads up or a just in case and something for you to think about. As far as excluding gluten from your diet and then re-introducing it back in - don't quote me on this, but your reaction could be worse after it is re-introduced. I know others have discussed this in other topics on this site, so be careful about that too. One thing that may help is just keeping a food diary. With everything you eat, track your symptoms you are feeling. Be sure to include your daily activities as well. Like say you get headaches every day. Well, maybe instead of that being a sign of an allergy, it could be that you are sitting behind a computer all day and you may need glasses, or your posture is off. Just don't cross all of your symptoms off to foods. It could be caused from other things as well. Just a thought...

As far as your blood tests....it looks like they did to a Gliadin IgG. If you are IgA deficient, or your IgA is out of range, your IgA tests are going to be falsely negative. My IgA serum showed I was out of range, and the only other tests they ran were IgA. They were all negative because my body wasn't producing enough IgA antibodies. Last week I had a gliadin IgG test run, in addition to them retesting my IgA levels. Do you have the ranges from your blood work for the IgG levels? Your blood work should show that your IgG levels are either negative, equivalent, or positive. You can test negative on your IgA tests, positive on your IgG test, and be clinically diagnosed as having celiac IF your IgA serum is out of range or deficient. If you follow this link, look at the chart and you will see what I am talking about:

Open Original Shared Link

Also, did they check your iron levels? If you have unexplained iron deficiency, this may also point to the celiac. However, it is not a diagnosis for celiac.

Hope this helps