Coeliac (English spelling) is an auto immune disorder - its when gluten causes the gut to attack itself and destroy (flatten) the micro villi in the intestine. The micro villi are needed to help absorb nutrients and this is usually what causes most of the symptoms though it is very common to have no or little symptoms.

There are lots of gluten free foods now available in the supermarkets and it is easier shop as food labelling is much better.

Yes, absolutely. If his bloodwork is showing antibodies, he should be avoiding gluten.

A friend of mine has a son whose bloodwork was positive, and his biopsy was negative, and the doctor told them to just keep feeding him gluten, and to bring him back in a few years to see if he has any gut damage yet. This is the *wrong* advice!

You have to have a Rast test to or a prick test to determine sensitivity to wheat. I'm not sure if the blood tests now test for foods. I know when I took them the blood test was mainly to look at sensitivity to environmental issues and they did the food in another manner.

I would call the doctor and ask him if it matters if you take him off gluten for now. Call the doc and double check - than you'll feel more confident and less confused. I did read a few articles that claim you can hurt the biopsy by going off gluten early. If the test is weeks away, I would try to schedule it sooner.

Biopsies can come back negative even if you have celiacs disease as the damage can be patchy. A good book to get that explains everything well is "The Complete Gluten-free Nutrition and Diet Guide". Also your blood work can be negative and the biopsy positive. I know it is alot of information to absorb. I was diagnosed 8 weeks ago with celiacs and my 2 youngest boys a couple weeks after that. My younger boys are 4 and 13 months. It has been a big change but we are working on it.

If a test (blood or biopsy) is positive, it is positive. If it is negative, it could be a false negative.

Although you don't see any symptoms in him right now (though I question why you got the tests done if there were no symptoms), there may be a lot of things going on that you aren't seeing, or aren't connecting with celiac disease.

For example, my son got strep throat repeatedly, mere weeks apart. But once he was off of gluten and dairy, he's never gotten strep throat again (about 4 years now). Did celiac disease cause his strep throat? Certainly not, it is caused by a bacterial infection. But his immune system was so compromised trying to fight off gluten, that there were no resources left to fight a bacterial infection, or cold or flu viruses, etc.

I grew up with chronic nosebleeds. Bled all the time. Sometimes several times a day. No one could ever say why. I just got it from my dad. Guess what? Chronic nosebleeds are a symptom of celiac disease (which I also got from my dad).

Anxiety, behavioural problems, or hyperactivity can be caused by celiac disease. Poor sleep. Infertility.

What you really have to do, after your testing is done, is take him completely off of gluten. Not just for a day, but for several months. Keep a journal and observe changes that you see in his health and behaviour. If he has a gluten infraction, record any negative effects. Chances are you will see a number of positive results that you hadn't expected or ever connected to celiac disease. And you may be surprised at his reactions to accidental infractions or cross contamination once he has been clean of gluten for a while.

My dad's and grandma's main symptoms were migraines. I hope gluten free helps him!

Yes, absolutely. If his bloodwork is showing antibodies, he should be avoiding gluten.

A friend of mine has a son whose bloodwork was positive, and his biopsy was negative, and the doctor told them to just keep feeding him gluten, and to bring him back in a few years to see if he has any gut damage yet. This is the *wrong* advice!

:noway: that's just crazy. Why risk it? By the time you have the gut damage, you already will have health problems, maybe vitamin deficiencies. I had anemia and low B12 at diagnosis. I was always tired, overweight and irritable. It increases your risk of lymphoma if you are coeliac and carry on eating gluten as well.

Many doctors here in the UK tend to think that a gluten free diet is a bad thing, and that nobody should ever cut out gluten if they are not coeliac. My GI specialist said to me that he didn't understand why anyone would want to cut a perfectly healthy food out of their diet if they didn't have the disease itself, when I told him that no matter what the biopsy said I would go gluten free anyway, and he said it was just a "fad" and young women misguidedly think gluten free will help them lose weight! Non-coeliac gluten intolerance is generally completely denied, and people who say they are intolerant to gluten usually treated as cranks or hypochondriacs by their GP's and specialists, despite growing evidence of links between gluten intolerance and conditions like Crohns, ulcerative colitis, IBS, allergies.....

Coeliac disease is not always inherited from a parent, so it is incorrect to say you must have a coeliac parent to be coeliac yourself. Neither of my parents are coeliac. My second cousin is also coeliac and so are here two kids and neither of us have parents with the disease - when we came back positive, our parents all got tests and theirs were all negative. None of them avoid gluten so no chance of false negative.