Hello @ClaudnDaye! Good to hear from you. I am sorry it has been a struggle lately, and this time of year is generally busy for everybody. I’m sure hopeful that come 2018, things will calm down a little bit for you guys.
It was NOT obvious to me. I’ve never had the biopsy, and I wish I had known about it when I quit eating gluten. I came up with the diet change on my own after years of struggling with IBS and no meaningful medical care surrounding it. No gluten really works for me, but I wish I knew if I had celiac or not now that I’ve been GF for years. I am actually considering going back on gluten so I can be tested to rule it out. I know with kids it would be a lot harder, but having a definitive diagnosis would be nice. Also, people CHOOSING to be GF might have gluten intolerance/no insurance/useless medical professionals and still benefit from the choice even if it’s not celiac disease. Also, I agree with you that this movement towards less gluten has lead to a lot more food options for people with celiac disease, and understanding of their needs. It’s certainly not perfect but it’s better than a complete misunderstanding.
@Aaron and @ClaudnDaye please do consider the testing if its recommended. While the outcome would suck, better to add it to the list of things to manage and not have the side effects (tummy troubles, bad control, etc.)
I recently listened to this interesting podcast about celiac disease and gluten intolerance, and it really opened my eyes up to a lot of things I had not considered. There were some points that I disagreed with in this podcast, but I did learn some new stuff.
And on the topic of being put under and needing multiple things addressed: make damn sure you start that conversation early. Makes total sense to me to do it all at once, but I’m not sure how easy it is to coordinate.