Test Results

[HelenS]

I just received test results for celiac disease... two were normal (tTg AB, IgA <3 u/ml, IgA Serum 144 mg/dl, but one was not... Gliadin Ab IgA was 18 u/ml, just a tad higher that the 11-17 " equivocal" result. The problem is I'm away from home for another month and a half, my dr. doesn't do phone consults, and I'm not sure what this all means. I know this isn't a medical site, but is this result really significant? What does it mean? Should I stop eating gluten (only symptom is diarrhea).

[ravenwoodglass]

If you are going to pursue more celiac testing do not go gluten free yet. You need to be on a full gluten diet for any chance of an accurate result on an endoscopy. If you are not going to do more testing then you should give the diet a good strict try for a couple of months. After all testing is done give the diet a shot no matter what the results are. False negatives with testing are common, false positives are almost unheard of.

[carecare]

I asked my son's ped GI dr this a couple weeks ago. I had my daughters celiac panel and wanted to know why her high gliadin ab IgA which was flagged as abnormal yet I was never told this. He said that there is a high rate of false positives with the gliadin ab IgA and they don't rely on that for a diagnosis. One person's high positive number could mean they are reacting to gluten and another person could have a high number and gluten isn't an issue. That's how I understood what he said. Most likely he's going to tell you your overall test is negative. However, it doesn't mean you aren't because the endoscopy is really what will let you off the hook or not. Like others always say....don't go off of gluten until you get all the testing done. So unfortunately you'll need to continue on gluten if you want the endoscopy.

My husband didn't do any testing but just went gluten free on his own. He knows without a doubt he reacts to gluten. It took him a good 5 months for the diarrhea to clear up completely but his indigestion cleared up immediately upon starting the gluten free diet. He also just felt better overall. His bouts of diarrhea weren't as frequent when he started the gluten free diet and eventually that cleared up completely as well...just took longer for him to heal I guess.

Good luck!

I just received test results for celiac disease... two were normal (tTg AB, IgA <3 u/ml, IgA Serum 144 mg/dl, but one was not... Gliadin Ab IgA was 18 u/ml, just a tad higher that the 11-17 " equivocal" result. The problem is I'm away from home for another month and a half, my dr. doesn't do phone consults, and I'm not sure what this all means. I know this isn't a medical site, but is this result really significant? What does it mean? Should I stop eating gluten (only symptom is diarrhea).

[Mari]

When I had the blood tests done the anti-gliadin was elevated but the other test were negative and it also showed an allergy to cow's milk. Within a few days of starting the gluten-free diet I felt so much relieved and better that I did not want to eat gluten again. I read online that some experts were saying the endoscopy biopsy wasn't always necessary and decided to have the genetic tests done. They showed I had two DQ2 markers and had a very high predisposition to develop gluten sensitivity and besides one brother had autoimmune diabetes which one of my markers showed that I had a chance of developing that, too. This was four years ago and now more of the experts are backing off the endoscopy as a necessary test.

[ravenwoodglass]

I asked my son's ped GI dr this a couple weeks ago. I had my daughters celiac panel and wanted to know why her high gliadin ab IgA which was flagged as abnormal yet I was never told this. He said that there is a high rate of false positives with the gliadin ab IgA and they don't rely on that for a diagnosis. One person's high positive number could mean they are reacting to gluten and another person could have a high number and gluten isn't an issue. That's how I understood what he said. Most likely he's going to tell you your overall test is negative. However, it doesn't mean you aren't because the endoscopy is really what will let you off the hook or not. Like others always say....don't go off of gluten until you get all the testing done. So unfortunately you'll need to continue on gluten if you want the endoscopy.

My husband didn't do any testing but just went gluten free on his own. He knows without a doubt he reacts to gluten. It took him a good 5 months for the diarrhea to clear up completely but his indigestion cleared up immediately upon starting the gluten free diet. He also just felt better overall. His bouts of diarrhea weren't as frequent when he started the gluten free diet and eventually that cleared up completely as well...just took longer for him to heal I guess.

Good luck!

I believe your doctor is misinformed. The biopsy is certainly not the absolute the doctor thinks. There are many instances of false negative on both the blood and biopsy. In some cases it is because the damage in patchy and a damaged area wasn't biopsied. In others there are changes present, like inflammation, scalloping, high esinophils etc that some doctors don't recognize as related to celiac. There are even times when a doctor will tell a person to continue eating gluten until the villi are totally destroyed before they will make a diagnosis. There are also folks who no matter how sick they are will show a false negative on blood tests. I was told over and over again that there was no way I was celiac because of negative blood tests. It cost me many years of pain and left me with some permanent damage. I hope you gave the diet a good strict try after all the testing was done. The body does know the answer that sometimes doctors can't tell us.