I am going to do the enterolab testing this weekend, should I keep avoiding dairy and the other foods that bother me or eat small amounts of them so they are in my system? I will remain GF.
Thanks,
Barb
Avoiding foods before test?
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Avoiding foods before test?
DX with MS, Hashimothyroiditis, Hypothyroid, Raynauds, Lymphocytic Colitis
Hi Barb,
If you're going to do the test this weekend, you don't have to continue eating anything that you are suspicious of. Most antibodies can still be reliably detected by the stool tests for at least several weeks after you stop eating them. Gluten has a very long half-life, so anti-gliadin antibodies can still be reliably detected by the stool tests for at least a year after gluten is withdrawn from the diet. That's not true of the blood tests, of course. The blood tests have such low sensitivity that they will typically only work reliably for 5 or 6 weeks or so after gluten is withdrawn from the diet, depending on the antibody level at the time that the diet is changed. And, of course, the blood tests will only detect fully-developed celiac disease, not the type of gluten-sensitivity that most of us have.
Good luck with the tests.
Tex
If you're going to do the test this weekend, you don't have to continue eating anything that you are suspicious of. Most antibodies can still be reliably detected by the stool tests for at least several weeks after you stop eating them. Gluten has a very long half-life, so anti-gliadin antibodies can still be reliably detected by the stool tests for at least a year after gluten is withdrawn from the diet. That's not true of the blood tests, of course. The blood tests have such low sensitivity that they will typically only work reliably for 5 or 6 weeks or so after gluten is withdrawn from the diet, depending on the antibody level at the time that the diet is changed. And, of course, the blood tests will only detect fully-developed celiac disease, not the type of gluten-sensitivity that most of us have.
Good luck with the tests.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.