For the upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, they said 7 days of gluten. So I did 8...fast food and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. For the earlier blood test, the younger doctor said I didn't have to. My immune system went down, I was in the bathroom a lot, and as my wife said my brain wasn't braining.

Thanks guys. I just got my results but I don’t know what they mean…  celiac disease reflex panel Immunoglobulin A  normal range 66-433  my results are a score of 358. Is this normal? I have no idea what to make of it…

How long was your gluten challenge? I hope it was longer than a week. If not, your testing was likely invalid. Recently upgraded guidelines call for the daily consumption of at least 10g of gluten (about the amount found in 4-6 slices of wheat bread) for at least two weeks prior to either the blood antibody test draw or the endoscopy/biopsy. And if you had been gluten free for all those years, you likely had lost any tolerance to gluten you may have had when consuming it regularly. That's probably why it was such a tough sledding experience. Before I was diagnosed, I had very minor GI symptoms. Now, after many years of being gluten free, I get violently ill for hours if I get a good slug of gluten, like when I got my wife's wheat biscuits mixed up with the gluten free ones she made me.

"Commit in a serious way to the gluten-free diet"....I've been Gluten-free since 2008. That's why I was so sick and had to take nausea and bloating medications during the gluten challenge week prior to the upper gastrointestinal endoscopy performed by the gastroenterologist. The "younger" doctor (the internal medicine who did the blood test), said the antibodies should remain in your system and you don't have to eat gluten (i.e., blood test last year). Hence my posting on finding a good doctor.

Well, the next step would logically be to commit in a serious way to the gluten-free diet and see if you have significant improvement in your symptoms. You should see improvement very soon with regard to GI issues and within weeks if there are other symptoms if gluten is indeed the issue. If there is significant improvement after going gluten free, that would tell you that you must avoid gluten and given the test results you already have, the logical conclusion is NCGS. As I said, an NCGS diagnosis is arrived at by first ruling out celiac disease, which seems to have been done. Then you could go back to that doctor with the other evidence component (improvement of symptoms with gluten-free eating) and ask if he/she would now be willing to declare an official dx of NCGS and give you a note. Or, you could book an appointment with another doctor who could look at your test results online, together with symptom improvement after going gluten-free, who might be more cooperative. I would seek out a younger practitioner as they are more likely to not be operating on outdated info about gluten disorders. By the way, NCGS is about 10x more common than celiac disease.