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Hi Theresa,  A few of my friends have your same story. You may be right about barley, etc.  18 years ago at a football game while clapping, suddenly my 4th finger was in agony.  It looked like a vein had burst. It was blue for a couple hours, then disappeared.  Finally realized it happened every time when drinking beer.  It's occurred several times over the years when opening a jar, lifting something that was a bit heavy, holding on to tight to something.  Immediate icing stops the pain and discoloration.  Now avoiding wheat in the US, it rarely happens.  Thanks for the reminder.  Will have Entero Labs run another test. Unfortunately they've relocated to Switzerland/Greece.

The EMA test is an old and less sensitive test for anti-tTG2 antibodies. It relies on a technician using a microscope to check for fluorescence of a labelled substrate (typically monkey oesophagus or human umbilicus), giving a simple positive/negative result. It is similar to running a standard anti-tTG2 test but with a high cut-off, making it more specific but less sensitive. Transient rises in tTG2 can be caused by e.g. viral infections and inflammation. Very high levels of anti-tTG2 (>x10 standard range) are almost certainly coeliac disease but moderately raised levels can have several causes apart from coeliac disease. Other food allergies can cause villi blunting but that is much rarer than coeliac disease or other non-coeliac causes. Not All That Flattens Villi Is Celiac Disease: A Review of Enteropathies

Maybe you have a low  intolerance to Wheat.   Rye, Barley and Malt are the gluten in Celiac disease.  It has always been stated Wheat and Gluten, not just a Wheat intolerance.  Barley will keep me in bed for (2) weeks.  Gut, Migrains, Brain fog, Diahrea.  It is miserable.  And when I was a toddler the doctor would give me a malt medicine because I always had Anemia and did not grow.  Boy was he off.  But at that time the US didn't know anyone about Celiac.  This was the 1940s and 50s.  I had my first episode at 9 months and did not get a diagnosis until I was 50.  My immune system was so shot before being diagnoised, so now I live with the consequences of it. I was so upset when Manufacturers didn't want to label their products so they added barley to the product.  It was mostly the cereal industry.  3 of my favorite cereals were excluded because of this. Malt gives me a bad Gut reaction.

Thanks much Scott.  Well said, and heeded.   I don't have Celiac, which is fortunate.

Do you have the results of your endoscopy? Did you do a celiac disease blood panel before that?  Here is more info about how to do a gluten challenge for a celiac disease blood panel, or for an endoscopy: and this recent study recommends 4-6 slices of wheat bread per day: