William Dickey, PhD, MD

Kaiti

And is who is presumably your older sister in the photo also free?

Not everyone on gluten-free has healed after a year, so a biopsy might show abnormality- maybe not villous atrophy, but an excess of inflammatory cells (lymphocytes). The possibility of other bowel disease causing diarrhea, such as a colon problem, needs considered, though alternating constipation with diarrhea in the absence of bleeding from the back passage, anemia, weight loss, or night-time diarrhea may be due to irritable bowel syndrome

There are abnormalities due to celiac disease that clued-in docs can actually see down the endoscope- scalloped folds in the duodenum, loss of folds, "mosaic" or cobblestone pattern. If they are obvious enough, the doc can diagnose celiac disease then and there, though will still take biopsies for confirmation.

Some nice photos at:

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ok, its sounds like your gut symptoms may be gluten related but what about your anemia?

Is it iron, folate or B12 deficient, or a mix of two or more?

I'd have thought if the anemia was due to celiac disease you'd have some abnormality on your duodenal biopsies.

Have you been checked for inflammatory bowel disease- similar symptoms, may (sometimes) respond to removal of wheat- i.e. colitis or Crohn's?

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Well, I had my test done yesterday. He took several biopsies of my stomach and intestine for celiac disease and H.Pylori.

What he noticed with the naked eye was:

Antral Gastritis-mild AND

Schatzki's Ring, so he dialated my esophagus.

He also said I had mild patch erethyma in the antrum

Gastritis- inflammation of the stomach

Antral gastritis- gastritis affecting the lower part of the stomach (the antrum)

Often caused by the bacterium- H pylori.

Erythema is a red appearance of the stomach lining, usually indicating gastritis.

Schatzki ring is a narrowing of the lower gullet just above a hiatus hernia which can cause a sensation of food sticking on the way down.

Hope this clarifies.

In vitamin B12 and folic acid deficiency, the average size of the red cells (mean cell volume, MCV) increases; in iron deficiency, the MCV goes down. All or any of these deficiencies can occur in celiac. To complicate matters further, if there is combined iron/B12 or iron/folic acid deficiency, there are populations of large and small cells which cancel each other out when the average is calculated giving a normal MCV.

Hope this clarifies.