GI Test Results

We took Dylan in last week for a follow-up visit with the GI doctor. Last time they took some labs and said they would call if they found anything. They never called, so I assumed that they didn't find anything. 

During the appointment the doctor took me though all of the results of the tests, and there were a lot of them. Everything came back normal except one test. Well, technically it came back normal - the number was something like 11.8. The normal range is between 1 and 20. But in his years of experience just about everyone falls within the 3-5 range. This test is not a diagnosis, but a red flag. The thing that it can be a red flag for is celiac disease. From mayo clinic's website:

Celiac (SEE-lee-ak) disease is a digestive condition triggered by consumption of the protein gluten, which is primarily found in bread, pasta, cookies, pizza crust and many other foods containing wheat, barley or rye. People with celiac disease who eat foods containing gluten experience an immune reaction in their small intestines, causing damage to the inner surface of the small intestine and an inability to absorb certain nutrients.

Celiac disease can cause abdominal pain and diarrhea. Eventually, the decreased absorption of nutrients (malabsorption) that occurs with celiac disease can cause vitamin deficiencies that deprive your brain, peripheral nervous system, bones, liver and other organs of vital nourishment.

No treatment can cure celiac disease. However, you can effectively manage celiac disease by changing your diet.

So this is not a food allergy. It is an autoimmune disease. It never goes away, but you can control it solely by changing your diet. It means no more gluten, which means no more wheat, barley or rye. One of the main affects it can have on young kids when it is not treated is it can stunt their growth.

Now we do not know if Dylan has this disease or not. We are waiting to see what he does over the next few months. Unfortunately the only definitive way you can determine if someone has this disease is to do a biopsy, which would require going into his small intestine to remove some tissue and then send it to a lab to do tests on it. But on the bright side, this doctor is not in a hurry to put Dylan through that unless he sees a pattern over time that indicates that we need to go ahead with it. We will go in again in 3 months for another check to see how he's growing and then we will have another blood draw in 6 months to see what that "11.8" is doing. If things continue to look suspicious, then we will probably move forward with the biopsy.

Honestly, I am trying not to think about how much I would have to change Dylan's diet, and likely the diet of our family if Dylan ends up having this disease. I try not to worry about things that I cannot control, or things where I don't even know the end result. But this is par for the course for Dylan. So we will be patient and see. Time will tell.

In the mean time, this boy is really getting good at walking on his own. It is so fun to see him choosing to walk rather than crawl. He's getting much more confident!

And he's very proud of himself too.