As a parent of a child with celiac disease, I am often asked how we knew that she had the disease. We didn’t. But we knew something “wasn’t right” and it was getting worse.<\/p>\n
We suffered through 5 long months to get the diagnosis. We now know we were lucky to get answers so quickly — on average it takes years – 4 to 6 years — to finally learn celiac and gluten indigestion is the culprit.<\/p>\n
Thus I thought it would be helpful to others to be able to review a list of the classic \u2014 as well as less common – signs of celiac in infants and toddlers. It is also important to realize that your child may have all, some or none <\/em>of these signs\/symptoms and might still have celiac! Looking back our daughter had some of these signs but until she stopped gaining weight, neither our doctor nor us thought there was a connection between them.<\/p>\n Classic Signs<\/strong><\/p>\n Less Common Signs<\/strong><\/p>\n Since this disease is believed to be as common as 1 in 133 people and the initial screen is now done with fairly straight forward blood tests, if you are concerned your child is sick or something is just not right with them \u2014 talk with your doctor immediately about the possibility of celiac. If your are not absolutely certain it is not what is affecting your child, insist on the blood test! If your doctor won\u2019t do it, go to another one. It is not an expensive test and truly is a life changing diagnosis. Also, keep in mind celiac is NOT A WHEAT ALLERGY! It requires different tests.<\/p>\n Finally, remember that to get an accurate diagnosis (whether you decide to do only the blood test or a full endoscopy) your child must keep eating foods with gluten in them until after the test period. If you remove gluten before the tests, you likely will get a negative test. This is really tough if your child is sick but in the long run continuing gluten consumption in the short term helps ensure that you truly have figured out everything that is ailing your child.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a parent of a child with celiac disease, I am often asked how we knew that she had the disease. We didn’t. But we knew something “wasn’t right” and it was getting worse. We suffered through 5 long months to get the diagnosis. We now know we were lucky to get answers so quickly — on average it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[45,12],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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