Living In Egypt

[Knoppie]

I live in Egypt and have been having some of the symptoms of celiac disease. I recently found out that it runs in the family.

Here in Egypt, the blood test is unheard of but I read that you can do a stool exam and that it would show presence of fat cells right?

I want to know if I have to make sure that i eat enough fat to show on the test and when should I do it after I eat it? Also will it make a difference that I haven't had any gluten for 3 days?

[ravenwoodglass]

It sounds like they are doing a stool test for malabsorption which would result in fat being present in higher than normal amounts. For that it wouldn't matter if you have been gluten-free for that short of a time. If you might be having an endoscopy done you need to make sure you are stay on gluten until that is done. Your doctor would be the best one to ask about the dietary requirements as far as what you are eating and when to test.

[Knoppie]

  ravenwoodglass said:

It sounds like they are doing a stool test for malabsorption which would result in fat being present in higher than normal amounts. For that it wouldn't matter if you have been gluten-free for that short of a time. If you might be having an endoscopy done you need to make sure you are stay on gluten until that is done. Your doctor would be the best one to ask about the dietary requirements as far as what you are eating and when to test.

The thing is that most doctors here aren't that great and I wouldn't really know which doctor to go to. Does the stool exam only test for malabsorption and not other things?

There isn't a lot of fat included in my diet, should I include fat before doing the exam or is it irrelevant?

[msharnoubi]

  Knoppie said:

I live in Egypt and have been having some of the symptoms of celiac disease. I recently found out that it runs in the family.

Here in Egypt, the blood test is unheard of but I read that you can do a stool exam and that it would show presence of fat cells right?

I want to know if I have to make sure that i eat enough fat to show on the test and when should I do it after I eat it? Also will it make a difference that I haven't had any gluten for 3 days?

The blood tests are available in Egypt. You can do them at Open Original Shared Link

But you have to explicitly specifiy the names of the test, that is the exact name letter by letter. Don't tell them celiac tests, they'll probably won't know them and don't just say Igg for example or you may risk them doing you another Igg and not the anti-gliadin.

As for the doctors, I agree, it's difficult to find one who is competent in celiac (hope I'm wrong). But hopefully, they will catch on.

Good luck.

[nora-n]

Researchers tested various people all around the mediteranean, and surprisingly many were positive when they ran the tissue transglutaminase IgA test (the usual screening test in europe)

I guess there are many many undiagnosed celiacs in egypt.

Can you order the findout celiac home test from europe? You do not need a doctor.

maybe your pharmacy can order it?

It is an Ttg IgA test.

There is also a variant that tests for IgA deficiency simultaniously, I think they have it in cananda or the u.s. , maybe it also does the IgG version, whatever.

the Ttg IgA test costs about 25 dollars here where I live. You take a drop of blood and do the test at home.

The stool test you can read about at the www.enterolab.com website. They both test for fat malabsorption and Ttg IgA in the stool (and will not pick up people with IgA deficiency) they also have he gene test. enterolab tests you do not need a docotr's oerders for.

nora