Help With A Gluten Challenge

[suziq0805]

In reading the forums it seems that people say you should eat gluten for 3 months before a biopsy if you have been gluten-free for awhile. Does anyone know of any research that supports that if you have only been gluten-free for 7 weeks? For a few reasons I decided it would be beneficial to look into an official diagnosis so I got a recommendation for a good doctor from some people my local celiac support group. I met with him today and he says gluten could be behind my issues so he'd like to do a complete celiac bloodwork (apparently the bloodwork I had done wasn't complete) and a endoscopy (he takes at least 12 biopsies). He said to go back on gluten for a couple of weeks. That conflicts with a lot of the info I see on this forum. I've looked online for research that supports being back on gluten for 3 months but haven't found much. Can anyone help me out? I was really impressed with this doctor so I'm not trying to prove him wrong, but I am just wanting to look into why others recommend 3 months so I can decide when to schedule this.

[shadowicewolf]

Yes, for a biopsy to have a chance to be positive for celiacs you need to consume gluten over time, so that, if you have it, the damage will be shown:(

Unfortenently, i was gluten free for 4 weeks before mine (which is the reason why i think i got a negative).

[cassP]

i dont have evidence on how long you should do it, but i can share with u- that i went on a 2 week gluten challenge- and it apparently was not enough, as my celiac panel looked almost identical to the 1st panel i did before the challenge

[love2travel]

About seven weeks ago I attended a major lecture by one of Canada's leading celiac specialists who said you MUST go on gluten for at least three months, eating the equivalent of four pieces of bread a day. That is what my surgeon and dietitian told me as well. Sorry that I do not have any sources for you to read, though. I have handouts from the lecture so will check to see if there was an explanation for that timeframe.

I ate lots of gluten for nearly four months and definitely had positive biopsy results.

[love2travel]

Oops! Never mind this post...

[suziq0805]

I scheduled it for 2 months from now. I can always push it back if I want to. They didn't seem to mind. The doctor said he's had success with a 2 week challenge but if I did that and it came back negative then I would always question it. Since the results of this could possibly affect some future career choices (whether I can work around gluten) I want to make sure I get an accurate result.

[Skylark]

Here is part of where the three months came from on the board. I did some digging in the medical literature a while back when we were all confused by conflicting advice from doctors. Scroll down to the fourth post for the studies I found.

What I don't know is whether seven weeks is enough to switch to a normal biopsy. It's certainly enough to make an "iffy" antibody test negative.

[suziq0805]

Here is part of where the three months came from on the board. I did some digging in the medical literature a while back when we were all confused by conflicting advice from doctors. Scroll down to the fourth post for the studies I found.

What I don't know is whether seven weeks is enough to switch to a normal biopsy. It's certainly enough to make an "iffy" antibody test negative.

Thanks for the info. I think I'll just continue with the gluten challenge until September and do the biopsy. School will be starting in a couple weeks and it's hard to get away those first few weeks anyway. I've also wondered if it was possible that my body could heal in just 7 weeks if I do have celiac. Seems like a lot of healing in just a fairly short period of time.