Should I Encourage My Children To Be Tested

[coffeetime]

We all know how the insurance companies protect their interest which brings me to my children. I have a 21 year old who is constantly fatigued and has migraines, a 19 year old who a couple of years ago lost about 30 lbs in 6 weeks, most of his hair and although he has stopped losing weight he can't get above about 165 (5'11) he often has to leave the table to use the bathroom and is constantly hungry. The youngest is 16 and went through several bouts of stomach pains (cat scans and other test revealed nothing) I was diagnosed several weeks ago, no real GI symptoms, but migraines, fatigue, we now know that I was severely anemic. My question is if they test positive and down the road have any health issues and their insurance has lapsed at any point it would be a pre-existing condition which means no coverage. Yet we could prevent lots of issues from happening if they knew and avoided gluten, none of the 3 are interested in giving up gluten if they don't have too. So does anyone have any advice? Is there a way to be anonymously tested? Thanks in advance for any advice.

[ravenwoodglass]

It is advised to test all first degree relatives of a person who is diagnosed. Yes your children should be tesed. Especially since they sound symptomatic. If you don't want anything 'on file' with your regular doctor you could do Enterolab testing. They do not diagnose celiac but they will tell you if antibodies are present.

[nora-n]

I ahve seen some discussions about that, and some have tested their children via enterolab, maybe using the mother's maiden name or something like that. I do not know how theya rranged it.

enterolab offers gene tests and some other tests, jsut check their website.

They cannot diagnose celiac, by the way, just early gluten sensitivity. And the genes would not diagnose anyone either. A positive enterolab test would not diagnose anyone with celiac.

What do others think?

I am in Europe, and we try to get a diagnosis, and if we manage to get diagnosed, here we get over 300 dollars a month from the state health insurance. (different in different countries) I can't believe it is kinsa opposite over the pond. Gluten sensitive persons get so much healthier on the gluten free diet. There is so much documentation for that.

nora