Refractory

[Kim27]

How does Refractory Celiac work? Can your type of Celiac change at anytime or if you have refractory then its refractory from the beginning? Can your body respond to gluten-free but then stop responding ? Does anybody have any info on this? & when you have refractory & you're not eating gluten, then what is your body responding to when it attacks itself if there's no gluten ?

[T.H.]

Here's how I understand it:

Some celiacs respond well to a gluten free diet, some don't. If they don't, and they seem to be gluten free, then it is often considered refractory and steroids are currently the main method of curing this.

However, in a study on refractory celiac disease, quite a few were helped by dropping more gluten from their diet (some celiacs still react to the typical <20ppm of gluten products and have to go to whole foods, instead, like fruits and veggies and meats and grains). Some others were helped by finding other food intolerances that were causing them issues.

A few in the study were not helped in either, but the majority were helped by the previous two things, so that might work if you are having an issue from this.

Also, some people seem to grow more sensitive to gluten after they have been gluten free for a while, and products that were once safe now make them react. That happened to my daughter, and seems to be happening to my father now, too.

[Kim27]

Do you still have access to that article? I'd love to read it. I can't find very much info about it on the web. Have you ever read about peoples' TTG levels initially dropping but then spiking back up despite gluten-free adherence?