ctenny

I was just diagnosed a week ago, so as of today, I have not met a single other person with Celiac's in real life. I have no idea what they look like! I have heard, through the grapevine of the internet, that there seems to be a high frequency of red heads in the Celiac population.

Is this just because of the two gene's common European upbringing?

Who here is a red head? I am!

What do you think of this odd coincidence?

Sup, bro. I'm a male. I'm 20yrs old. Being men, what kind of gluten-free products do you keep stocked in your man caves?

Thanks everybody! I appreciate the feedback, and y'all are right... no two Celiac's are the same. I mean honestly, the initial symptoms that sent me to the doctor weren't GI related. Though I've seen studies that say Celiac has a larger body of symptoms found outside of the GI field than previously thought.

  On 2/9/2012 at 9:14 PM, ravenwoodglass said:

Welcome to the board. IMHO the doctor was right and hopefully you will be feeling much better very soon. Do read as much as you can here and ask any questions you need to.

Thanks for the fast response ravenwoodglass!

I think the doctor is right as well. Hopefully the gluten-free diet will do the trick. And, hopefully I can follow it closely enough so as not to let any gluten sneak through... that's the hard part, making sure that everything I digest is free of gluten. I've never had to read the nutritional facts and ingredient list before now. It's quite a challenge, but "you gotta do what you gotta do".

I was finally diagnosed with Celiac on Monday after having several tests come back "borderline" positive. My symptoms haven't really been digestive (though somewhat they have been), for the most part my symptoms were neurological (twitches, numbness, ect).

My endoscopy results were fuzzy, with an unusual concentration of lymphocytes but barely any blunting of the villi.

My tTG antibody test was a 10, whereas the cutoff is 8. (In other words, it's barely positive)

The DNA Test came back heterozygous for DQ2 (if I remember correctly... I don't have the sheet in front of me, but the doctor said it have me a moderate risk of Celiac (1:35))

With all 3 of those tests coming back "borderline" positive, he went ahead and told me I was most likely positive for Celiac.

What do you guys think of the results? Is the doctor right? I personally believe he is right, but the tests are so... fuzzy. I've been on the gluten-free diet only since Monday now, so I can't tell a difference yet. Hopefully in the next few weeks or months I'll know for sure if gluten was the culprit behind my annoying neurological symptoms.