Pre-Diagnosis Introduction

[hypersof]

Hi all

I am new here, but I have been reading the forum for a little while...(thanks for the support!)

As an introduction, I'll tell my story:

1,5 years of GI symptoms/ fatigue/ mood swings/ skin problems...never went to a doctor before because when I first experienced these symptoms I had just arrived to the US, no healthcare, stressful situation...thought that was stress.

Then I just asked for advice to my mother (she's a doctor) and she thought it was IBS (she's been diagnosed with IBS+fybromyalgia)

But after a while this wasn't going away -at all- despite all my efforts to eat well, exercise, increase water intake, relax etc etc..pretty depressing!

I also discovered "randomly" that suppressing (or reducing a lot) my dairy intake did help with the bloating...but didn't solve the large picture!

Then, googling my pains I thought about gluten...

So I finally got an appointment with a GP, did some blood test for gluten (don't remember everything, IgA I think...)

I'll see him again in 2 weeks, he'll tell me the blood results and I'll tell him how I did gluten-free...

(I was so happy to find a nice doctor listening to me, and agreeing to test me for gluten that I didn't think going gluten-free now wasn't the wisest choice. I mean, if my antibodies are high and call for a biopsy, I'll be gluten free for several weeks when I do it...)

Anyway, I'm on day 4 gluten-free and I can't believe the drastic change -not perfect, but after a 2-days headache, I now feel soooooo much better -I didn't remember how it felt not to be terribly bloated etc )

In the end, right now I am in a strange place, happy that I am being tested -and feeling so good since a few days! and kind of scared at the same time, 'cause it seems it could actually be gluten -and well, it is a bit scary to me! (even though I'm sure I'll discover lots of new great food of course

So I wanted to write a little something here, to get some support, discuss all that and share our experiences! thanks to all of you (it already helped to read the forum and write this message!)

oh, and apart from all that, I wanted to ask a couple of things:

1) the first blood results I did (nothing to do with gluten) showed elevated liver enzymes -any possibility this could suggest celiac??

2) what about cholesterol? I have an ok overall cholesterol level, ok "good" cholesterol but slightly elevated "bad" cholesterol...though as I said, with the IBS suspicion (and even before actually), I am not exactly big/ junk food eater...so I don't quite know where it comes from!

anyway, thanks again to everyone on the forum, if you have any advice I'm listening!

Sophie