Understanding My Blood Test Results

[tempus fugit]

I'm having trouble understanding my blood tests results.

It reads:

Celiac Disease Comp Panel:

Tissue Transglutam AB IGA, Result 44H

Endomysial AB (IGA)Positive H

Endomysial Titer 1:40 H

It's all Greek to me.

I had an endoscopy that came back negative. However they failed to inform me to continue to eat gluten before the test. I had stopped eating gluten 3 weeks prior to test.

My question is. Am I positive for celiac?

[mushroom]

Although you don't give the lab ranges for the blood tests, each test you list is marked "H" or "high", meaning that it was positive. Yes, I would say you have celiac disease. Three weeks could be sufficient time for healing to take place and negate the biopsy results.

[JoshB]

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*Tissue Transglutam AB IGA, Result 44H

TtG-IgA is the normal go-to test they use. Ranges vary between labs, so it's hard to say how positive you are. This is a machine run test. They have a slide prepared with human tissue trans glutaminase then they drop your blood on and add a fluorescing dye that only sticks to reacting antibodies. The machine then reads how bright the fluorescence is and spits out a number based on that. You normally want to see "0", though and I think we can assume that "H" means "High". AB refers to abbreviated, which either means that your doc ordered the cheap version or they stopped at the cheap version because you already tested positive. Some labs are being a little more intelligent these days and are following up with TtG-IgG or total serum IgA only in the case that TtG-IgA didn't test positive. This was unnecessary in your case as you already tested positive in the more specific version.

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*Endomysial AB (IGA)Positive H

Sort of the same as above except that this test can be more sensitive. It's more expensive though because it involves manually preparing slides and staining samples and then counting "hits" with a microscope. Again you're positive.

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*Endomysial Titer 1:40 H

Here rather than counting fluorescing dots on a microscope, they add the dye to diluted samples of your blood and keep diluting until it stop reacting. They kept seeing a positive result until your blood had been diluted forty to one.

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So you're positive on blood tests, which are both more specific and more sensitive than biopsy. Assuming that the biopsy was done well, I think that probably means that you were just starting to develop issues. That's actually really good news as far as your health goes. The bad news, unfortunately, is that you need to eat gluten free from now on to make sure you don't actually start developing serious damage.

I'm not a doctor so take all that with a grain of salt, and while the TtG tests are very good, they are not absolutely perfect. More rarely (very, very rarely; this is almost certainly not you!), you can test positive because of auto-immune damage to your liver. So if your doctor has reason to suspect that you are dealing with something other than celiac disease then you should cooperate with him to make sure you're not dealing with some other issue.

[Skylark]

I'm having trouble understanding my blood tests results.

It reads:

Celiac Disease Comp Panel:

Tissue Transglutam AB IGA, Result 44H

Endomysial AB (IGA)Positive H

Endomysial Titer 1:40 H

It's all Greek to me.

I had an endoscopy that came back negative. However they failed to inform me to continue to eat gluten before the test. I had stopped eating gluten 3 weeks prior to test.

My question is. Am I positive for celiac?

Yes, you have what is called latent celiac disease. Positive endomysial antibody and TTG together is a very, very strong celiac bloodwork result. They are both autoimmune antibodies, and they are aimed at your intestinal villi.

People with bloodwork like yours and a negative biopsy have participated in studies. First, they have metabolic markers of celiac disease that are the same as people with positive biopsies. Second, if they keep eating gluten, the biopsy turns positive within a year or two. You are in the "latent" period, between where the antibodies appear and the intestinal damage gets bad enough to consistently show up on biopsy. It is time to go gluten-free for life, before severe damage starts.

@JoshB, TTG can rarely appear in other conditions, but anti-EMA is specific for celiac disease. The combination of the two leaves no doubt even for us non-doctors.

[tempus fugit]

Thank you all so much for the help in deciphering the hieroglyphics that are my lab results.

You have all given great insight to what will now be a life change and not just a change in diet.

Onward!

[pain*in*my*gut]

Thank you all so much for the help in deciphering the hieroglyphics that are my lab results.

You have all given great insight to what will now be a life change and not just a change in diet.

Onward!

Yep, those are positive all the way....you are one of us. Jump in the pool...the water is nice and warm (and gluten-free)!