Gluten And The Immune System

[knivhoj]

First of all I would like to thank everyone on this forum. All the questions and qualified answers have been a wonderful help and comfort during my recent gluten challenge, as I sort of lost confidence in my GI specialist, after he told me, his recommendation for "real" celiac patients is to enjoy gluten products during vacations, it wouldn't do them any harm. He does not think I am a celiac, but agreed to do blood work and endoscopy, after I've been eating gluten for four weeks.

From 2005 to 2007 I was treated with antibiotics for many different reasons, such as pneumonia, sinus infections, urinary tract infections (I'm a male, so this is not normal) and skin infections. I was also treated for diverticulitis and adrenal fatigue, candida and several incidents of dehydration. In addition to all the infections, I suffered a lot of anxiety. I really felt sick, and back in 2007 I started on a gluten free diet without any doctors advice or diagnosis of any kind, and I have achieved pretty good results, except from one thing

[IrishHeart]

  On 6/10/2011 at 7:30 PM, knivhoj said:

I sort of lost confidence in my GI specialist, after he told me, his recommendation for "real" celiac patients is to enjoy gluten products during vacations, it wouldn't do them any harm.

My question is, can a gluten intolerance really play that much havoc with a persons immune system? When I find different articles about gluten intolerance versus celiac disease, the gluten intolerance is very often just described as abdominal discomfort and not much else!

Thank you so much.

This GI doctor should be sued for malpractice.

He couldn't be more wrong. No celiac should EVER consume gluten. He is woefully ignorant.

Perhaps you need a new doctor???

Given your many symptoms described here, whether you are non-celiac gluten intolerant or a celiac, does it matter? You certainly did better on a gluten free diet.

I just read something about this very topic in Recognizing Celiac Disease by Cleo Libonati, RN..."Non-celiac gluten sensitivity disorders do not involve the intestinal lesion that is characteristic of celiac disease, although they may involve other aspects including breach of the intestinal barrier and association with autoimmune diseases ." (p.15)

Does that help??

[GFinDC]

Well, one thing you know for sure, gluten makes you very sick. Gluten intoelrance is not well studied, ad there is more unknown about it than known about it. Test for celaic are not 100% perfect either, and failing a test does not automatically mean you don't have celiac. It can just eman that you don't test well. Even the "gold standard" endoscpy can give false negatives. The small intestien si 22 feet long adn they can only reach teh first 4 or so feet of it with an endoscopy. There are some people on this baard who never tested positive, but had severe debilitating symptoms from eating gluten.

Your symptoms sound pretty bad to me. I would guess that you would get very very sick if you continued to eat gluten.

[rgarton]

Yes gluten does cause havoc to your immune system. Before i was diagnosed i had my first ever stomach bug (I'm 21!) And i still didn't throw up... I never have! Anyway i also got every cold under the sun, sore throat, runny nose everything! and when my cat got fleas, which i usually never notice because i don't react to their bites, i got itchy legs for the first time!

When i finally got diagnosed my doctor said that my immune system would be shot to bits for a while, because it is an auto immune disease, your immune system is so dedicated to getting the poison (gluten) out of your system it is constantly exhausted!

I'd advise changing doctors asap, i changed my 5 times until i found mine. Go and get a biopsy, ask for sedation! Simple! And if it is a negative self diagnose gluten intolerant at least! My mum was un diagnosed for over 30 years because of negative blood results, she got a biopsy and there it was! But all this time she has stayed away from wheat etc.

Then stop eating gluten, wheat, ect! Treat yourself as a celiac! Sometimes, your lactose tolerance comes back but stay away for a few months and maybe slowly introduce it again and see the results. And to get your immune system back up and running, get multi-vits, especially Zinc and Vitamin E (Helped with my anxiety) And do small amounts of exercise every day.

I wish you the best of luck and really hope you feel better soon. x