Celiac Disease is a bit of a shape shifter. It is tricky to diagnose because it often looks very different in one person than it does in another. One person may have gastro-intestinal distress while another person may struggle for decades with recurring migraines and have no g.i. symptoms at all. Adding to its elusiveness, some people who have it are completely asymptomatic. Often times, people come to their diagnosis because they’ve been sick for years—often with fairly mysterious symptoms—and have tried everything else. CD is still under the radar of most health care professionals and a test for it is often a last resort.

If you are someone who has been suffering with an illness to which you cannot find an answer, consider this list—which is by no means exhaustive—of the ways that Celiac disease can manifest.

TESTING FOR CD:

The Conventional Way

Conventional wisdom says that a diagnosis of Celiac Disease can only be made as a result of a positive intestinal biopsy. A needle is inserted into the upper small intestine and the extracted tissue is examined for damage under a microscope. This test is very invasive and has some problems: sometimes the celiac-related damage to the small bowel is patchy and is missed by the biopsy or is too subtle to see under a microscope. Other times the damage caused by CD has happened elsewhere in the body without visibly affecting the upper small intestine. A biopsy is not the best for picking up degrees of damage and may come up negative if the person’s disease isn’t in an advanced state. However, the biopsy is the gold standard in cases where the damage to the intestine is severe.

The Alternative Way

More and more, doctors are relying on blood tests to diagnose CD because they are much less invasive than a biopsy. There are a whole host of serum tests that can be done, some with higher levels of false negatives than others, but the most effective singular test is an ELIZA assay, which tests for IgG antigliadin antibodies. Any of the blood tests can be performed by a conventional physician or a naturopathic physician. If you are interested in getting a serum test and your doctor isn’t familiar with them, just ask him or her to research the matter for you. You will find, more often than not, that he or she will perform the test at your request as an alternative to a biopsy.

The Cheap Way

You don’t technically need a doctor to tell you that you have celiac disease. The cheapest, least invasive way to find out if you are a celiac is to do an elimination diet. Cut out all gluten from your diet for a minimum of two weeks. It is not enough to cut back on the amount of gluten in your diet; you must eliminate all traces of gluten for the elimination diet and following “challenge” to work. For a list of foods to avoid click here. After the elimination period is over, eat something containing gluten. This is called “the challenge”. If you react to that food and your symptoms return, this is indicative of a gluten intolerance.