A number of years ago I had an early test to rule out Celiac or an immune response to Gluten or Wheat. It was confusing and inconclusive. But suggested I was having a strong reaction to something all of the time, the IgA was very high.
Nothing so invasive as a biopsy, but a simple allergy test. This mostly because I started "getting watery eyes and sneezing" whenever I over indulge in something like Pizza. And milk products have never quite set well with me.
Also I tend to get a minor rash that looks like bug bites in minutes. Well.. maybe not "minor".. major skin flushing and welts.
About five years ago my doctor recommended a low sucrose diet. Throwing myself into it, it became essentially a Low-Carb diet with virtually no Gluten or Wheat. I recognized not only a lot of weight loss, but my allergies cleared up.
That's when I came across a book called "Wheat belly" and decided to experiment with a low gluten, wheat adverse challenge and diet.
The results were personally pretty shocking.. black and white amazing.Undeniable.
I could now reproduce the "sneezes" and "rash" on command, simply by eating a grilled cheese sandwich. A fresh dinner roll caused excruciating pain (the kind you can't scratch and aspirin doesn't help) and blisters across my chest.The kind that boil up from the dermis and leave a mark that does not heal for quite a while, not something superficial.
Reading more about Celiac I found that after a period of "damage" lactose intolerance was a common occurrence. And the rash was identical to a type of dermatitis (there are lots of pictures online) that often serves in place of a biopsy to diagnose Celiac disease.
I haven't shared this with my doctor, self diagnosis is probably something to be avoided. But I have definitely chosen to treat Gluten and Wheat as something to be avoided (for me) along the lines of a vegetable I like to avoid.
Interestingly I also found an obscure reference to a person in West Texas who refused a typical Celiac diet who responded well to a particular vitamin that dampened down the IgA response. So far it seems to work well for me.. but I don't plan to go back to overindulging on Gluten or Wheat products.
