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QUESTION: My family has a history of Celiac Disease and my mom had some of the same symptoms as the rest of us. She had a RAST allergy test with an allergist last fall and was told that she is allergic to mushrooms, bananas, corn, wheat and candida yeast. The allergist put her on a strict candida diet with the avoidance of wheat, corn and gluten at the same time. She then went to a GI who didn't think she had Celiac Disease, but, ordered the IGA and IGG as well as an endoscopy. Her IGA and IGG was taken 1 month after she had gone gluten free (she knew how to go gluten free and it was easy for her because of the family history, so no real gluten mistakes). The endoscopy was done 2 months after going gluten free. Both of these procedures were done with the doctors knowledge of her being gluten free and both came back negative.

Our question is, are these tests probably accurate even though she had been gluten free? Or, does she probably have Celiac Disease, but it didn't show up because she was gluten free?

DR. RUDERT: There is certainly the possibility that your Mom had already healed after being on a gluten-free diet for two months. From your letter, I cannot tell if appropriate blood testing was done for Celiac disease. Blood tests may also normalize after being gluten-free and depend on the degree of elevation and the type of blood test (blood tests should include antigliadin IgG and IgA in addition to antiendomysial ab and tissue transglutaminase).

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