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anotherusername posted:
How do you determine gluten intolerance?
calgal37 responded:
The easiest way is to just take wheat, rye and barley out of your diet - completely - for about 3-4 weeks and see what happens. If you start to notice changes and feel better - and fewer symptoms satisfy you - then you've got your answer.

However, you won't really know medically what's going on. The 'medical' way, depending on your symptoms and your doc's suspicion, would be to have an upper endoscopy with biopsy of the small intestine to rule in or rule out celiac disease. However, a true diagnosis can take up to 10 years to fully show up, and that's one heck of a long time to wait.

You might consider doing a couple of other tests. If you go to Enterolab on the web, you can order a gluten gene test. The results will tell you whether or not you're carrying gluten-sensitive or celiac genes, and it will give you a suggestion as to how 'good or bad' those genes can be. There's also a fuller explanation on the FAQ portion of the website on whether or not you should stay away from gluten, and why - if you have any of the representative genes. If you don't have the genes, you can rule out gluten as an issue.

You can also do a food allergy panel at Enterolab, or some of other companies, that will tell you your IgA and IgG status to certain foods and give you an idea of whether you're currently producing large amounts of antibodies to some of the foods you're eating. If you are, and you take those foods out of your diet, you'll probably end up feeling better.

My husband used enterolab years ago to find out he's got a definite issue with gluten, and more recently with dairy. He's one of a number of individuals who cross-react to casein apparently due to the gluten.

I've never had a problem with gluten - or so I thought - but I got sick last October and ended up in the ER. No one could figure it out. Seemed similar to gallbladder but not enough to really be that. Since I work with a lot of people with gluten issues, and I've seen a lot of presentations of gluten-associated problems, as a "lark" I decided to do the gene test. My test showed one small gene that shouldn't have really bothered me at all. But I went GF anyway and imagine my surprise when I found out my low-level fatigue went away! I haven't had another other bouts of pain/discomfort, so I can't say the pain was due to the gluten, but I do feel better overall. I was consciously exposed to gluten in February after being off it for 3 months and boy was I miserable. Went 'down' like a ton of bricks! So I choose to stay GF.

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