Is test for Celiac necessary?

[Guest guest]

Greetings,

 

In an earlier post, I shared that I didn't want to go to my doctor to be

tested for celiac, due to my complete lack of faith in the " medical

profession " . After years of disappointment at not being helped for various

health problems, I have given up and treat most of my health concerns myself,

save for the occasional infection that won't clear up without antibiotics

(this is very rare for me). So I have decided to put myself on a wheat-free

GF diet, in hopes that my self-diagnosis is correct, and that I have gluten

intolerance and/or celiac. My concern is that I have heard from some people

that if you are gluten free for several months, and then decide to be tested

for celiac, then the results will come out negative, even if you do in fact

have celiac, and you'll never be able to get an accurate diagnosis. So I

guess my questions for the group are as follows: are there any reasons why it

would be important to have an " official " diagnosis of celiac from an MD?

Could it be detrimental to not have a diagnosis? Is there really anything a

doctor could do for a person with celiac, that you couldn't do for yourself?

Is there any danger to my health by not consulting with an MD about this?

 

As for my progress on this path, I have been GF for 3 days (today is the

third day), and though I have felt better the last couple of days, I had

major symptoms last night. Actually, it started earlier in the day, but

became much worse in the evening. After dinner, I had to just go to bed,

because my abdomen was so bloated and painful. I know I can't expect to feel

100% better right away, but I was surprised to have such bad symptoms while

eating GF. I guess my gut is in bad shape, and even though I haven't had any

gluten, it still has trouble digesting and functioning normally, and will

probably take a while to heal. I would be interested to hear about other's

experience, and about how long it took before you began to really feel

better.

 

Thanks for listening,

 

Christine