6/22/07 
Here are links to several articles describing the diagnosis of celiac disease. These are summaries, and attempting to summarize a summary is always a bit risky. But I’ll give a brief introduction to each article:
Start by reading “Ten Facts About Celiac Disease”, published by the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness. Celiac disease is very common and is often mis-diagnosed. The only treatment is a life-long commitment to the gluten free diet. The diet is much to complicated and expensive to be entered into lightly. It may do just enough good to mask important symptoms in people who not actually celiac.
This article from the Celiac Sprue Association outlines the three step process that leads to a celiac diagnosis. The article stresses that the diagnosis must be completed before the patient begins a gluten free diet. Why? I’ll use myself as an example. If I went through the testing procedures, they would reveal that I have no trouble processing gluten. And, of course, I don’t. I have solved the problem by eliminating gluten from my diet. Confirming my celiac disease at this point would be for me to make myself sick by consuming gluten for several months.
But, why do we need a formal diagnosis? Why go to the pain and expense involved in a biopsy? This article answers these questions simply and without medical jargon. The article published by webMD.com goes into more detail. I know many people who follow the gluten free diet simply because it improves thewebMD quality of their lives. There is a lot to be said for that point of view, but it is important to consider all the information that is available.
Finally, I suggest that your read this article by the National Digestive Diseases Information Center, an agency of the federal government. It’s worth the effort to wade through it since it contains a vast amount of information. Click here to study the Easy-to-Read version of the article.
