Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | diagnosing Celiac Disease

You asked about how I was diagnosed with Celiac. It was a long and frustrating process for me- much like the long road to a diagnosis of IBS!! I had blood tests for it about 11 years ago that were positive for it. They know so much more about accurate blood tests for it now than they did back then, but you still want to be SURE they're running the most up-to-date tests so you don't get bad information. Most people still say that even with good blood tests you still need to have an endoscopy so a biopsy can be taken from the small intestine to confirm. It IS possible to have negative results from bloodwork and yet still have Celiac.

I went to Dr. Joseph Murray at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for my biopsy. I live in a rural area with small hospitals, and at the time there were no GI's that I trusted to do this in our area. Mayo has a Celiac Clinic, and Dr. Murray specializes in it (I had found his name in one of my cookbooks - he was HIGHLY recommended by the GF author!). I'm glad I had it done. It runs in families, and I wanted to be sure of my diagnosis so I'd know if I needed to screen our kids.
One more thing- it's REALLY important that you eat gluten for about 4 weeks before having these kinds of tests done. If you're not eating any, the damage to the intestines will not show up and you'll get false results! This is a big BUMMER for most of us since you can feel so bad (or get sick- depending on how your system responds to gluten). It's worth it for a good diagnosis tho. Believe me- you DON'T want to have to eliminate gluten on top of all the limits for IBS if you don't HAVE to!! It's not that it can't be managed, but it certainly limits your choices. This is most difficult when you try to eat out!

Anyway- long answer to a short question! Sorry!
Good Luck- KellyJean

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