Diagnosis and Testing

I, (Michelle) went to meet my GI on Friday for a consult. We needed to discuss what steps I would be taking in determining whether I have Celiac's or not. After having to switch my primary care physician because he was dragging his feet with setting up some simple blood work, and meeting my new doctor, and having her send me to the GI to get evaluated for said blood work...let's just say I'm questioning my faith in how much these guys know about the disease.

The GI didn't understand why my general physician wouldn't just order up the blood work, while the general physician was leary about ordering up lab work that she wasn't sure of. Why can't these guys get on the same page. If it's easy enough for me to research and find out all of this info. why aren't they getting it??

So, anyway, my GI decided to start with the antibody test and go from there. Again it gets a little tricky...he hasn't diagnosed a lot of patients with Celiac's because he figures the general physicians are seeing it more. Plus, once your diagnosed he doesn't feel that it's a GI problem anymore since it's just diet controlled. Hun?? Why won't anyone take responsibility for diagnosing and treating this easily controlled disease?? Maybe it's because they just don't know enough yet, maybe it's because once there's a diagnosis they can't prescribe a pill to cure you?? Who knows.

Needless to say I'm very frustrated. Plus, he told me that if my blood work comes back positive for Celiac's he wants to do an endoscopy to confirm the results...okay??? However, if it comes back negative then he has complete faith in the test and we don't need to do anything else. ??????? Is anyone else wondering what he means by this?? So, he doesn't have faith in the test if it's positive only negative. Funny thing, I've read in several articles that the blood work is never a definitive diagnosis and there have been plenty of people who have false lab results both ways.

I meet him again next Thursday to get my results. Depending on where it goes, I may be going for another opinion. From what I understand, having chatted with several diagnosed Celiac's, it sometimes takes several trips to the doctor until you find one who really knows what he's doing.

Pray that our doctors are one of those.