Eat Gluten Again to Be Tested

This post about the gluten challenge exam should not exist used as a substitute for medical communication from your md. This article likewise contains chapter links. Delight read my disclosures and disclaimers .

A friend of mine, "Karen," had a feeling gluten was bothering her. Many years ago she eliminated gluten from her nutrition and began to feel meliorate. She fifty-fifty tried, on several occasions, to eat gluten over again and, like most people who cannot eat gluten, she immediately barbarous sick. All her symptoms returned with a vengeance.

Karen clearly knows gluten is no good for her, all the same she can't help simply wonder if she has celiac illness or a gluten sensitivity.

Karen'south story might sound familiar to you. There are millions of people who have eliminated gluten and experienced a health turnaround. Most of them cannot fathom going back on gluten, yet none of them were tested for celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity. They are curious to know which disorder plagues them.

In order to get tested for celiac disease (or a gluten sensitivity), however, you must be eating gluten. A celiac disease claret exam cannot pick up antibodies to gluten, and the small intestine cannot be damaged, without the presence of gluten.

While it is EXTREMELY important to get tested for celiac illness (and a gluten sensitivity) BEFORE eliminating gluten, many people have eliminated gluten, experienced a vast comeback in their health, and now are left wondering what disorder they actually have.

In this commodity, I will talk about the Gluten Challenge, what it is, how to implement information technology, how to decide whether or non it's right for you, and how the effect of the Gluten Claiming will or won't change your approach to gluten.

Likewise, I'll as well discuss a few things y'all can do Earlier taking the Gluten Claiming that might salvage you from a lot of hurting and discomfort.

What is the Gluten Challenge?

The Gluten Challenge is the process of reintroducing gluten back into your gluten-free diet then y'all tin get tested for celiac disease. (If celiac affliction is ruled out, the Gluten Claiming can exist used to get tested for a gluten intolerance or sensitivity as well).

You must consistently be eating gluten in order for a celiac disease examination to exist accurate. Without gluten, the pocket-size intestine volition heal, making intestinal damage consequent with celiac disease, the gilded standard test for diagnosing celiac disease, undetectable. Additionally, without gluten, a simple celiac illness blood examination, which you lot can take at-home, cannot pick upwardly antibodies to gluten; Gluten must be present for your body to make gluten antibodies.

While I tested positive for celiac disease via a blood test AND small intestinal biopsy in 2012, I have been tested (via claret test) for celiac illness once again, several years after implementing a strict gluten-free diet. All my blood tests now come back negative for celiac affliction.

A negative blood exam doesn't hateful I don't have celiac disease anymore; rather information technology means my celiac illness is in remission. If I began eating gluten over again, the damage to my small intestine would render, every bit would my sour symptoms.

How Much Gluten and For How Long?

If you lot're going to have the Gluten Challenge, you lot may exist wondering how much gluten you have to eat and for how long you have to eat information technology.

While you should hash out these details with a doc trained in helping patients with celiac disease, it is mostly recommended that you eat three to 10 grams per day for six to viii weeks. This is equivalent to a 2-4 slices of bread each day (a piece of breadstuff is most two grams).

However, the experts at the Celiac Disease Eye in Chicago recommend eating only about two grams of gluten per mean solar day for 12 weeks, or one slice of bread.

Equally you can see, even the experts disagree on how much you should eat and for how long you should consume information technology; they do, however, hold that you demand to be eating a meaningful amount of it consistently for a prolonged menses of time.

The process of adding gluten back into your diet tin can be a painful i, especially for someone who is symptomatic to gluten.

Personally, the thought of eating gluten and sitting on the toilet for several hours each day sounds like torture because even a crumb of gluten has me running for the can!

Some people cannot tolerate eating gluten for the duration of the Gluten Challenge. It's just besides painful.

No affair how long someone can stand up to eat gluten, a good doctor will still do a blood examination to expect for antibodies to gluten, also every bit a biopsy of the small-scale intestine, to see if any harm has occurred. Fifty-fifty a minor corporeality of impairment caused by gluten may be seen after merely two weeks into the Gluten Claiming.

Why Take the Gluten Challenge?

I can understand why many people want to take the Gluten Challenge. They want to know, for sure, if they have celiac disease or if something else might be at play.

Only what are the truthful benefits of a celiac disease diagnosis should you determine to have the Gluten Challenge exam?

(1) Celiac Patients are Taken More Serious: For starters, people with confirmed celiac illness are oftentimes taken more seriously past friends, families, waiters and even the medical community. A gluten intolerance isn't as widely accepted in our lodge and even questioned, shunned and fabricated fun of by belatedly dark comics.

I assure you, notwithstanding, a gluten sensitivity is real and serious! Unmanaged gluten sensitivities can atomic number 82 to early on mortality as I wrote well-nigh in this commodity. When someone is sensitive to gluten, their small intestine is in a chronic country of inflammation… and it'southward no secret that inflammation leads to disease (and lots of it!).

(two) Celiac Patients are More Likely to be Strict about their Diets: People with celiac disease are more likely to strictly attach to the gluten-free diet, where people with merely a gluten sensitivity may be more lacksidasicle in their direction of their diet (possibly not as concerned about cantankerous contamination or crumbs as their celiac disease counterparts are).

Again, it's unfortunate that some people with gluten sensitivities are non every bit serious about their nutrition as someone with celiac disease. It'due south mainly due to the lack of sensation and education of gluten sensitivity as a "real" disorder. I clinch y'all, information technology'due south real and afflicts then many people in so many ways.

(3) Researchers Become an Accurate Picture of the Number of People Affected with Celiac Disease: While the more often than not accepted number of people with celiac disease is almost one percent of the population, many experts say that the rate of celiac disease is actually closer to three percent of the population. No one can know for sure, however, because many people go gluten-costless before getting tested.

Interestingly plenty, Researchers at Rutgers University establish the rates of celiac diagnosis brackish for the beginning time since 2009. Still, this number is likely skewed due to people self-diagnosing their weather condition and choosing to follow a gluten-free diet without Commencement having ruled out celiac disease.

When someone doesn't beginning get tested for celiac illness, it becomes impossible to make up one's mind the true prevalence of the disorder and worse, researchers may conclude that the number of people with celiac disease is decreasing!

Furthermore, equally the number of cases of celiac disease rising, and the "true" number of people afflicted with the disorder comes to light, so does interest from researchers, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, etc.

Nosotros need researchers to spend more coin and time understanding and treating celiac disease (and even gluten sensitivities) … only they volition do so only if the disorders afflict a larger percentage of the population.

(4) Celiac Disease Patients May be Eligible for Hereafter Handling Options or Benefits: Fingers crossed that 1 day at that place will be celiac disease treatment options beyond the gluten-free diet for those of u.s. with celiac illness. Someone volition demand a confirmed diagnosis of celiac illness, however, in guild to be eligible for such treatment options.

Furthermore, should additional insurance benefits become available for those with diagnosed celiac disease, those on a gluten-gratis diet without the diagnosis may want to have advantage of those benefits too.

In countries like Argentina, health care providers must cover the cost of culling flours and gluten-free mixes. In the U.Southward. yous tin deduct some of the additional costs of eating gluten gratis from your taxes. Read this article about tax deductions for celiac disease and consult your tax adviser.

Are At that place Alternatives to the Gluten Claiming?

Before you put yourself through the difficult Gluten Challenge exam, y'all may be wondering if in that location are alternatives to forcing yourself to eat gluten, redamage your body, and exist chronically sick for 8-12 weeks!

Yeah, there are some things you can do first before implementing the Gluten Challenge exam.

Commencement, talk over with your healthcare provider getting a genetic test before doing the Gluten Claiming. People with celiac disease carry i of 2 genes, HLA DQ2 and DQ8. Virtually 25-30 percent of the population carries 1 of the genes associated with celiac disease.

Someone cannot accept celiac disease unless they have 1 of these genes and are eating gluten. (Read: What Causes Celiac Disease?)

You lot can read more about how to undergo genetic testing for celiac disease in this article.

If y'all don't accept ane of the celiac disease genes, and so y'all cannot have celiac disease and at that place is no need to put yourself through the Gluten Challenge.

Additionally, one of the leading experts on gluten disorders, Dr. Tom O'Bryan, says that y'all tin take a celiac illness blood test even if you lot are gluten costless.

He said in a 2014 PDF titled "Reintroduce Gluten, "Clinically we see that most six out of every 10 people who are gluten-free and do a test detect that the results come dorsum positive with elevated antibodies to the peptides of gluten."

Again, consider doing the above tests earlier taking the Gluten Claiming, specially if the idea of eating gluten again is a painful one.

Is the Treatment Different for Celiac Disease vs. Gluten Sensitivity?

Hither'south the kicker of it all: Whether you lot have celiac affliction or a gluten sensitivity, the current treatment option (a strict gluten-free diet) is exactly the same.

At the end of the Gluten Claiming, the only affair you have to show for yourself is a confirmed diagnosis (or not) and a (re)damaged intestine that can accept many months, even years, to heal and put back into remission.

Additionally, Dr. O'Bryan, says reintroducing gluten to your nutrition for the sake of testing for celiac disease may create more impairment than proficient.

One study in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition of the Gluten Claiming in children showed that most children were not able to consume the full recommended amount of gluten (due to roaring symptoms), and that, despite the small-scale amounts of gluten consumed by the children, "all children showed signs of relapse at a clinical, laboratory, or histologic level."

Would y'all desire your child, or yourself, to endure through a relapse?

Furthermore, let'south say yous took the Gluten Challenge and tested negative for celiac disease. You so give yourself permission to eat gluten once more because it's just a gluten sensitivity. Guess what? Celiac disease tin develop at anytime (and it can create a lot of harm in its path). A negative examination today doesn't mean you won't go along to "develop" celiac disease later on in life, especially if you begin consuming the trigger food (gluten) once again.

Knowing if y'all are genetically vulnerable to celiac affliction, regardless of your symptoms and test results, puts you at college risk of developing celiac affliction. Celiac disease is a serious autoimmune condition with a multitude of damaging symptoms, many which are irreversible and life-altering.

What Should You Do?

Ultimately, deciding whether or not to have the Gluten Challenge test is a personal determination. There is no right or incorrect respond.

However, before taking the Gluten Claiming, consider getting genetically tested for celiac disease first, as well as taking a uncomplicated blood test to see if gluten antibodies are detectable in your body. Many people on a gluten-free diet are all the same eating trace amounts of gluten that can be detected by today's claret testing methods.

Considering I was diagnosed with celiac disease before I went gluten-free, I did not take to take the Gluten Claiming examination. That's why I'd love to hear from y'all.

Did you take the Gluten Challenge? How did it go? Or are you considering information technology? Please share your comments and questions below and allow our community to help yous figure things out.

Regardless of your conclusion, I promise you find the answers yous're looking for and peace with your determination and final diagnosis.

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Source: https://www.goodforyouglutenfree.com/should-you-take-the-gluten-challenge/

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