celiac and crohn's/IBD

[Guest guest]

I have read a few posts lately about celiac and testing, and also the

occurrence of some folks being diagnosed as having Crohn's only to get

dx'd as celiac later on, or vice versa. I wondered if anyone know how

common this was?

I googled 'celiac and crohn's disease' and it seems the symptoms are

similar, if not the same. Would people say this is generally true?

Is it really that easy to mistake one condition for the other? I

guess since there is no definitive, failsafe test for either disease

(is there??), it would be easy for doctors to pick one or the other

and go with it, and since neither has a cure, and the treatment for

celiac in mainstream medicine is GF, then the results could be

lifelong on/off flares.

I also wonder, the " flares " in celiacs - is it constant pain and

suffering, or could it be on/off flaring, as it often is in Crohn's or

UC?

Anyway, I hope I'm not oout of line for asking these. I didn't see

answers in the google results for these questions, so I thought there

was no better place to ask.

Thanks for reading,

Crohn's (4/06), endometriosis (years) // SCD 11/06

no meds

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

FWIW, my dd was dx'ed with celiac initially. Even though I felt like an idiot

insisting on a referral to a GI (there's only one tx, so why bother with a

specialist?!), I did anyway, and am so glad I did. To our pediatrician, her

blood tests were cut-and-dried celiac. To the GI doc, although the lab numbers

were quite high, her physical exam and symptoms immediately led to strong

suspicion of Crohn's.

I am so thankful we went to see a GI. Like you said, without that information,

I wonder what her life would be like--on a GF diet but with continual pain and

flares, probably.

btw, the definitive test for celica is an endoscopy with tissue biopsy. For

crohn's, it's bloodwork (CRP and ESR, especially) and biopsy results from a

colonoscopy and endoscopy.

Good luck finding your answers.

Ellen

9 y/o dd scd since 5/06 for crohn's