What Follow Up Blood Tests?

[gabby]

Hi,

I've been gluten-free for several years now, but over the last few months, I haven't been feeling that great, and I think I've been getting small amounts of gluten in my diet. I'm going to get a full workup done at the doctor's office and wanted to know what tests I can request to see if I've been getting gluten in my system. And what tests would show things like malabsorption, inflammation, etc.

Thanks for your help!

[sahm-i-am]

I would think they would run the Celiac Panel (4 bloodwork tests) to determine if any antibodies are being made. The usually run them once or twice a year. If they are high you are still getting gluten in you somehow. My GI recommended an upper GI w/in a year of diagnosis (I've only been gluten-free for 7 months) to see how healing is going. Not sure about follow ups. I would think once a year for a few then maybe every other?

[plumbago]

Dangerous Grains says that the EMA Test , Endomysium Antibody, is recommended: "The development of the endomysium antibody test resulted from recognition that antibodies against this tissue are present in more than 90 percent of celiacs who are consuming gluten, yet the disappear quite rapidly after excluding gluten." This would seem to be therefore a good test to measure recent ingestion of gluten. The others measure how much you've been getting over the past six months at least.

[gabby]

Thanks for the quick replies! I'm going to go tomorrow and find out when they can do the tests...and I'll see what comes up.

Fingers crossed that I haven't been getting glutened all this time ....