Celiac Disease

You might suspect you have celiac disease if you have gastrointestinal symptoms after eating gluten. Many people appear to have a sensitivity to gluten or wheat products in their diet. Food intolerances can cause uncomfortable symptoms after eating, but they don’t damage your intestines the way celiac disease does. To diagnose celiac disease, healthcare providers will look for evidence of this damage.

It’s important to get tested for celiac disease before you try a gluten-free diet, so the tests can reveal how gluten actually affects your body. Once you begin avoiding gluten, your gut will begin to heal. Healing is good, but it’ll erase the evidence of celiac disease. You and your healthcare provider need to know for sure if you have it in order to know what kind of care you’ll need going forward.

How do healthcare providers test for celiac disease?

Healthcare providers use two methods of testing for celiac disease. They prefer to use both together to confirm the diagnosis. The first method is blood testing. Providers test a sample of your blood for the gluten antibodies that damage your intestines. Then, they’ll look for the damage itself. This requires taking a small tissue sample from your small intestine (biopsy) to examine under a microscope.

To take the sample, a gastroenterologist will perform an endoscopic exam of your small intestine. Endoscopic procedures involve passing a tiny camera through your body on the end of a long, thin catheter. An upper endoscopy passes the endoscope down your throat into the first part of your small intestine. Guided by the camera, the endoscopist can pass tools through the catheter to take a biopsy.

Additional tests

After confirming celiac disease, your provider will want to test your blood for specific vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Severe deficiencies can have wide-ranging effects on your body and may need to be treated directly with supplements. Common findings include iron-deficiency anemia, vitamin-deficiency anemia and vitamin D deficiency. You may also be low in electrolytes, such as calcium.