My celiac panel came back negative

“My celiac panel came back negative. My biopsy was negative as well. Do I keep pushing for a diagnosis, or assume I am truly not sensitive to gluten?? So perplexed!! :)”

This is the most common question that I get asked.   So I wrote 4 books about it!

• The Gluten Syndrome;
• Are You Gluten Sensitive? Your Questions Answered;
• The book for the Sick Tired and Grumpy;
• Full Of It: The Shocking Truth About Gluten.

Three things:
1- Did you get a gluten antibody test? (IgG-gliadin antibody)? That helps with the diagnosis.

2 – If you feel better gluten-free, and get sick/unwell when you eat gluten: then you are gluten sensitive. The diagnosis is made by your own experience (that is made by elimination & challenge). It is not exclusively a blood test diagnosis.

3 – The blood tests help with diagnosis (checking for gut damage [celiac disease], confirming gluten antibody responses, checking nutritional status). But if you have “normal” tests, this does not rule out gluten-sensitivity … this is known as The Gluten Syndrome.

Do take a visit the eClinic
Dr Rodney Ford
http://www.DrRodneyFord.com

Gluten blood test – none in Wellington

To diagnose gluten-sensitivity, the best test is the gluten antibody test: the AGA (Anti-Gliadin-Antibody), also known as the IgG-gliadin antibody.

I spoke at the gluten-free ans allergy show in Wellington over the weekend.  But,  I have not been able to find any medical laboratory in Wellington that offers the AGA (Anti-Gliadin-Antibody), also known as the IgG-gliadin antibody.

They only offer the DGP (Deamidated Gliadin Peptide antibody) which does not identify people with gluten sensitivity.

I will ask more people.  Aotea labs does not offer this test.  Cheers, Dr Rodney Ford.

Peanuts are underestimated! Peanuts Allergy

Peanut allergy has become a serious food allergy that is increasingly common.  A large proportion of the children who are allergic to cow’s milk or egg are also allergic to peanuts, so it is important to check for peanut allergy in children with eczema, especially if they are being breast fed.

Peanut allergens can get through into breast milk

Peanut proteins and peptides can easily travel through the breast milk and affect the baby – the telltale sign is bright, red, scaly, rough cheeks that won’t heal.   It shows up clinically much like the egg allergy.
Children should not be given peanuts in the first years of life as it is such an allergenic food.

Skin prick tests are an excellent way of detecting a peanut allergy.  RAST test will also detect a peanut allergy.

Children with strong family history of allergy, especially if they have eczema, should be skin tested for peanut allergy.

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How about that egg allergy?

Do the skin tests tell me how bad the egg allergy is?

The bigger the skin tests, then the longer the egg allergy persists.  However, 80% of children will outgrow their egg allergy by 6 years of age.  Getting skin tested again at 5-6 years old is a good idea.  That will give you a good idea if there is continuing egg allergy. A skin prick test of over 10mm suggests a longer time before getting over the egg allergy.

Could my child have an anaphylactic reaction?

Yes, if enough egg is eaten, then a child with a positive egg skin test can develop an anaphylactic reaction.  But a child will spit out the food immediately and often will vomit – this protects the child.

What about cooked egg?

Yes, many children can tolerate tiny amounts of egg in baking but would get sick if given any obvious egg products.

Does egg allergy cause eczema?

Yes it does, Dr Ford’s research shows that egg is the most common food allergy in babies and toddlers in causing eczema.

Can egg get through in breastmilk?

Yes, egg easily gets into breastmilk.  So if your breastfeeding child has eczema, then Dr Ford suggests that the baby gets skin tested – if positive, then mum should go off eggs until the baby is weaned.

How long does egg allergy last?

Most children (80%) get tolerant to egg by 6 years old.  Get another skin test then to see.

Is egg allergy a lifelong condition?

About 20% of egg allergy children continue to be allergic to egg into adulthood.  Most of these people have a big skin test to egg early on and remain positive throughout childhood.

Book suggestion: You can learn a lot more about food allergy and eczema in Dr Ford’s book “Eczema! Cure it!”

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What are the cow’s milk allergy symptoms?

Cow’s milk is a very common trigger for baby eczema.  Cow’s milk is one of the first food proteins to which most children are exposed either in a formula or through the mother’s breast milk.

Children who are allergic to cow’s milk will often be allergic to other foods, especially eggs and peanuts.  For those children who are allergic to cow’s milk, it is important to find them a safe alternative drink.  There are a number of choices depending on the age of the child.

Milk can cause a host of problems

Almost any symptoms can be caused by milk.  This is why milk allergy/ intolerance is so hard to pin down.  It tends to be the last thing that your doctor will think about (instead of the first).

Symptoms include

• Eczema
• Other rashes
• Diarrhoea
• Constipation
• Blood in stool
• Gastric reflux
• Runny nose
• Asthma
• Glue ear
• Headaches
• Mood changes
• Irritability
• Behaviour disturbance

The eClinic can help you a lot more to work this out.

Typical milk allergy story

Here is a typical story that I see every week.  I asked Toby’s mother to write it down.  She says this:

“Dr Ford, thank you for giving me an opportunity to write my story.  As last, Toby (now 14 months old) is well again.  I am so relieved.

Toby is my second baby.  Everything went so well for the first few weeks.  I was a contented mother.  He was breastfed and beautiful.  But then our troubles began!  By four weeks he was starting to whinge and squirm after feeds.  I noticed that his skin was getting dry and felt scaly.

I got anxious.  Over the next few weeks his rash got worse and worse.  His cheeks got red and began to crack and weep.  He developed cradle cap.  He was being sick after his breast feeds.  At times he seemed miserable.  My GP had given me a steroid cream to put on – but it didn’t make much difference.

Luckily, one of my friends told me that this might be a food allergy and that I should see Dr Ford.  I did!  He solved the problem!

After listening to me, he did a series of skin prick tests.  They were easy to do.  They were done on his back and Toby didn’t even notice.  Within five minutes he had two big bumps like sand-fly bites on his back.  They were reactions to cow’s milk and to egg.  It was amazing!  I had an answer!

It was now so easy.  All I had to do was to remove all cows’ milk and egg from my diet.  I did this.  Within three weeks Toby’s skin was almost perfect.  It was hard to believe!

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Wellington gluten free expo (NZ)

Speaking at the Wellington, NZ, Gluten Free and Allergy Show tomorrow 27 Aug 2010.  Will be awesome.  Another opportunity to raise gluten awareness.

Eating gluten – necessary for blood tests?

Question: the EMA and DGP tests you mentioned in your speech … does one have to be eating gluten to get an accurate result?

Reply:  See webpage (see link) for full answer.  Blood test for gluten | celiac

EMA and tTG are antibody measurements.  Also DGP.  These antibodies take months and usually years to go down once you have started your gluten-free diet.  If you have been off gluten for a few months, then these blood tests should still be accurate.  But if you have been gluten-free for a few years, then they will not be useful for diagnosis – unless your gut has not healed.

If you have been diagnosed with celiac disease, then testing for EMA, tTG, or DGP will give you an indication of if your gut is healing.  However, as you get older, healing is not so assured (and a repeat endoscopy is a good idea).  #DrRodneyFord.

More to life than gluten

The point of this post was to alert us all to the fact that life is not about gluten! Yes, we need to be gluten-free … and we need to be careful about cross-contamination … and eating out can be a challenge … and the food costs more … and there are social consequences!

BUT there is more to life.
When we are gluten-free, we reclaim our health.  We can live our lives more richly and full. We can focus on our relationships rather than ourselves, we can concentrate more on our experiences than our meals.

That is what I am all about!
Cheers, Dr Rodney Ford.

Slightly off topic but hopefully engaging :)

This post is slightly off topic BUT I thought that I wanted to get to know my readers to make my blogs more personalized. My question for everyone today is: What’s a “perfect world” to you?

I would like to post “off topic” blogs weekly, do you think that is a good idea? I hope this will be a way of interaction between myself and my readers AND between the readers.

Keep well

Cow’s milk colic and reflux

Hi everyone. I am associate Professor, medical doctor, paediatrician (children’s doctor). I have done a lot of studies about problems related to food allergy, gluten-sensitivity (the gluten syndrome), coeliac disease, and gastroenterology problems. I am also known as the medical food doctor!

Today I will be sharing with you some facts about Cow’s milk:

Relief from colic has been observed in breast fed infants whose mothers have been put onto a diet free of both cow’s milk and dairy products.  The baby’s colic was found to return when the mother began eating dairy products again.  These initial studies were done in 1978 by Jacobsson and Lindberg.  These were “open” studies (mothers knew whether or not they were drinking cows’ milk) which showed that a third of colicky babies responded to their mothers going off dairy.

Colic is caused by cow’s milk  in 1-in-4 babies

This work was subsequently strongly criticized, and so they repeated their research by doing “double blind” studies (they gave the mothers “disguised” drinks so that they did not know which days they were drinking cows’ milk).  The mothers then observed the symptoms in their babies.  By doing this more rigorous study, they confirmed their observations: that the colicky babies responded to dairy products.  However, this time around they found that a quarter (25%: one in four) of colicky babies got better when their mother went on a dairy free diet.

These colic symptoms are often caused by gastric reflux – GORD

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