Diagnosing a suspected gluten sensitivity, (intolerance, allergy or celiac disease), can be tricky, especially without health insurance.\u00a0 Here are a few tips.<\/p>\n
There are two major approaches: tests and following an elimination diet (self-testing).\u00a0 Both have pros and cons, as you will discover in this article.<\/p>\n
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If you go for testing, firstly you (or someone, e.g. public or private insurance) will have to pay for it.\u00a0 This may limit the tests available to you, depending on the financial circumstances.<\/p>\n
Allergy testing is notoriously inaccurate.\u00a0 You may get a false positive or a false negative, in other words, it isn’t as helpful as we would like it to be.\u00a0 Still, if you don’t have a clue what you are allergic to, this may help.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, if you suspect a gluten allergy already (probably the reason you’re reading this article), you may as well do self-testing. Keep in mind though that you may have more than one allergy, in fact, this is very likely.\u00a0 For most people, if they have one allergy, then they have several.\u00a0 What if removing gluten from your diet doesn’t seem to help all that much?\u00a0 It would be good to know what else you should eliminate, and this is where allergy testing becomes a useful guide.<\/p>\n
There are several tests for celiac disease, some more helpful than others.\u00a0 However, they are not perfect, especially when the test comes back negative when in fact you have celiac disease.\u00a0 There are two advantages to getting tested though.\u00a0 One is that you can get tax write-offs for the additional cost of eating gluten-free in some countries.\u00a0 The other is that if your test says you have celiac disease, you will probably have more focus on your gluten-free diet.<\/p>\n