Negative Blood Test- Positive Biopsy

[peeptoad]

How common is it to have a negative blood test and a positive biopsy?

My blood test was negative and my doctor (maybe with good reason) never went any further with testing and dismissed celiac. About a year or two later I found out onmy own that gluten was one of the major culprits in my GI problems, so I went gluten-free.

A year after that I had a routine visit with my doctor and she asked how my GI stuff was going and I told her it was mostly fine, except when I ate gluten. She then proceeded to tell me that she'd had multiple patients who tested negative on blood come back and tell her they found out gluten was a problem...

I wonder how many people actually go through with the biopsy even when the blood is negative??

[Bubba's Mom]

  On 8/22/2012 at 5:12 PM, peeptoad said:

How common is it to have a negative blood test and a positive biopsy?

My blood test was negative and my doctor (maybe with good reason) never went any further with testing and dismissed celiac. About a year or two later I found out onmy own that gluten was one of the major culprits in my GI problems, so I went gluten-free.

A year after that I had a routine visit with my doctor and she asked how my GI stuff was going and I told her it was mostly fine, except when I ate gluten. She then proceeded to tell me that she'd had multiple patients who tested negative on blood come back and tell her they found out gluten was a problem...

I wonder how many people actually go through with the biopsy even when the blood is negative??

I was really sick when I first went to a GI. My PCP kept telling me there was nothing physically wrong with me..

When I told the GI my symptoms, which were many, and severe. She said she wanted to schedule an endoscope right away, along with a stomach emptying study, and some blood tests. I had blood drawn that day and my scope about a week later.

When she did the endoscope she said I had total villi flattening, scalloping, and a mosaic pattern in my intestine instead of villi. She DXed me on the spot and gave me pics. She also did several biopsies too though.

The results of my blood tests came in a day later. It was negative for Celiac. I'm so thankful that everything was ordered at once. Some Dr.s do the blood test and if it's negative don't look any further. The blood tests are wrong 20-30% of the time.

[peeptoad]

  On 8/22/2012 at 6:49 PM, Bubba said:

I was really sick when I first went to a GI. My PCP kept telling me there was nothing physically wrong with me..

When I told the GI my symptoms, which were many, and severe. She said she wanted to schedule an endoscope right away, along with a stomach emptying study, and some blood tests. I had blood drawn that day and my scope about a week later.

When she did the endoscope she said I had total villi flattening, scalloping, and a mosaic pattern in my intestine instead of villi. She DXed me on the spot and gave me pics. She also did several biopsies too though.

The results of my blood tests came in a day later. It was negative for Celiac. I'm so thankful that everything was ordered at once. Some Dr.s do the blood test and if it's negative don't look any further. The blood tests are wrong 20-30% of the time.

Thanks. I was aware of the false-negatives on blood test, but wasn't sure how often people actually got the biopsy if their blood turned up negative. It's a good thing in your case (as you say) that everything was ordered all at once.

I think it's probably much more common for a doctor to not order the BX if the blood is negative...but I wonder how many people out there are celiac and don't know it.