Help

[wendation]

I have just recently began eating gluten free over that past 3 months or so. I have done three to four trials of going on and off gluten and I am sure that it is what is making me sick. Each time I stop eating it and then try it again, I get way more sick than the time before. Why is that? I don't just get a little sick. I have vomiting, severe diarrhea, nausea, headaches, fever, and even scalp peeling and itching. Are those the normal symptoms? I have been to the ER twice for this over the past few months. I have a regular doctor's appointment scheduled next week. I keep hearing that they will make me eat it again to see if I have a true allergy to it. I simply cannot eat it again. It makes me so very sick and I end up feeling like I just want to die. I also had milk with my cereal the past two mornings and this made me very sick. Should I go gluten and dairy free? I don't know what to eat anymore. I find myself afaid to eat now because I don't want to be sick. Any tips or advice? I am very new to this.

[RiceGuy]

Welcome to the board! You're in good company, and you've come to the right place for answers to your questions.

First, nobody can force you to eat gluten. However, if you seek the standard tests such as the biopsy, it'll likely be negative if you haven't been eating gluten regularly up to very near that point. The intestinal damage is usually expected to heal considerably in a few weeks, and the presence of antibodies in the blood is expected to drop for the most part in that same period of time. While the time to heal varies greatly from person to person, this is what is considered typical. There is a point beyond which the tests aren't reliable enough to bother doing. From what I've read, it seems to me that about two weeks gluten-free would be about as long as you might be able to get away with, if that. Probably less I'd think is more likely.

It is my opinion, that a reasonable and knowledgeable doctor should diagnose you with gluten intolerance at the very least, just based on your symptoms and response to diet. If that is good enough for you, then that's all you need. If you want to prove that eating gluten damages your small intestine, I know of only one way to conclusively demonstrate that - eat gluten until the damage becomes visible.

As I understand it, an allergy differs from an intolerance in the way the immune system responds. As far as I know, the standard tests for both will be negative once you've been gluten-free for a relatively short time. There are other tests which can be performed on the blood, but those too are expected to become negative as well, if I understand correctly.

At least one lab claims to be able to get some level of accuracy up to a year after going gluten-free, but I don't know just how much trust one can have in that. I think Enterolab is one of the places to make claims of that sort.

The genetic tests could tell you if you've got the genes associated with Celiac, but they can't tell you whether or not you've developed the condition.

[wendation]

Welcome to the board! You're in good company, and you've come to the right place for answers to your questions.

First, nobody can force you to eat gluten. However, if you seek the standard tests such as the biopsy, it'll likely be negative if you haven't been eating gluten regularly up to very near that point. The intestinal damage is usually expected to heal considerably in a few weeks, and the presence of antibodies in the blood is expected to drop for the most part in that same period of time. While the time to heal varies greatly from person to person, this is what is considered typical. There is a point beyond which the tests aren't reliable enough to bother doing. From what I've read, it seems to me that about two weeks gluten-free would be about as long as you might be able to get away with, if that. Probably less I'd think is more likely.

It is my opinion, that a reasonable and knowledgeable doctor should diagnose you with gluten intolerance at the very least, just based on your symptoms and response to diet. If that is good enough for you, then that's all you need. If you want to prove that eating gluten damages your small intestine, I know of only one way to conclusively demonstrate that - eat gluten until the damage becomes visible.

As I understand it, an allergy differs from an intolerance in the way the immune system responds. As far as I know, the standard tests for both will be negative once you've been gluten-free for a relatively short time. There are other tests which can be performed on the blood, but those too are expected to become negative as well, if I understand correctly.

At least one lab claims to be able to get some level of accuracy up to a year after going gluten-free, but I don't know just how much trust one can have in that. I think Enterolab is one of the places to make claims of that sort.

The genetic tests could tell you if you've got the genes associated with Celiac, but they can't tell you whether or not you've developed the condition.