Not Yet Diagnosed

[jessimarie3]

Hello,

I was diagnosed with IBS in middle school (I am now 21) and never really improved. When I started college my doctor asked me to try a dairy free diet when help a lot until recently. 5 months ago I began to feel worse and my stomach cramps I used to have came back and I frequently was nauseous and had indigestion. I went to see my doctor again he believed it was just IBS related and asked if I have taken out dairy from my diet (which I did years before and was a little bothered that he didn't remember)and he suggested that I should try a gluten free diet along with taking stomach acid reducers. After 4 weeks on my new diet I felt pretty good. I no longer needed to take the stomach acid reducers to manage my nausea and heartburn and didn't have stomach cramps as often. I had a follow up appointment scheduled two weeks later I began eating gluten again and asked for an antibody test. When I ate gluten again I began to get nauseous and had my heartburn again. My stomach cramps would knock the wind out of me and I had a new symptoms such as achy joints the chills. My doctor thought I had Celiac's disease but did not suggest further testing, he instead told me he would order the antibody test I wanted but if it came back negative it doesn't mean that I am not sensitive to gluten or if my symptoms are even gluten related.

I'm feeling a bit discouraged and was wondering if anyone had any advice for me and what to do next.

Thank you

[ukdan]

Celiac is very difficult to diagnose and the tests are notoriously unreliable. This is why if the tests do come back negative they tend to suggest taking out gluten anyway to see if you feel any benefit. It sounds like you have felt better without gluten so it looks like you are at least gluten sensitive.

The only difference between sensitivity and celiac is damage to the intenstines but the answer is the same (gluten free diet). If you want to be sure you could ask for an endoscopy but you would have to carry on eating gluten until the test to be sure. I am only being tested at the moment to be certain that there aren't any other underlying problems but intend to come straight back off it once I have had the tests as I was like you and felt better when I wasn't eating it.

At the end of the day trust your own body as many are happy to act 'as if' without having an official diagnosis.