Levels Of Celiac

[rweintritt]

I was just reading about the contamination of oats. On one of the threads, I read a big debate about whether there are varying levels of Celiac. It caught my attention because about 4 months ago my doctor tested me for Celiac. Several times my results came back borderline. I was consistently a few points below diagnosis but he said that I was definitely borderline and should avoid gluten. So, wouldn't borderline be a varying level of celiac?

[Guest Viola]

Celiac Disease, is just that. There is no border line on having the disease. However, there is varying degrees of damage to be detected during the tests. You should be on a gluten free diet, and perhaps be thankful that you don't have serious damage as yet. If the tests are showing little damage, perhaps you will be lucky and heal quickly with the diet. That's not to say that you can ever go off the diet, just that your symptoms hopefully will go away quicker on it Now ... have I really confused you?

[KaitiUSA]

There are not degrees of celiac disease but there are degrees of symptoms. Some people may have worse reactions and so forth but the people who don't get bad reactions are in the exact same boat of having to avoid ANY amount of gluten.

Some people may have had worse damage then others because of going undiagnosed for so long but again it does not effect the diet they need to follow.

If you are celiac then you are celiac...no levels about it...

hope this cleared up some questions about it

[rweintritt]

Well, I only had blood tests, not biopsies. So, I don't know about damage that I may have. I have definitely felt better being on the diet and last week I ate pizza and thought I was going to die. I couldn't get out of bed for a week, but that never happened before, when I was eating gluten. So, obviously my body has adjusted to being gluten-free. I guess my confusion is in the interpretation of the blood results. I had a much higher than normal antibody count, but it wasn't quite enough to diagnose Celiac. So, what does all this mean? Does the antibody count correlate to the amount of damage? Thanks to you who have replied.

[KaitiUSA]

Does the antibody count correlate to the amount of damage?

Not necessarily. Antibodies in the blood indicate there is a negative response to gluten going on in your body. Some of the time when there are antibodies present there will be some damage..to what extent of damage that can vary. Other times damage may not have arised yet. I think it depends how long the celiac has been activated and gone undetected. The longer you go with it undetected the more damage I would think you would get.

[ianm]

For me the symptoms seemed to have been there since day 1. Sometimes they would get real bad and sometimes it went into remission. It wasn't until my mid-20's that it became chronic and by my early 30's I was in real bad shape. The level of symptoms can vary but sooner or later they do catch up with you.