Studying Works!

I had my six month check up yesterday. I can hardly believe it has been six months since I was diagnosed with celiac. Sometimes it feels like just a month or two and sometimes it feels like a decade. But yes, six month check up! The main purpose of which was to re-run my blood work and see how things are going. The short answer: very good.

The slightly longer answer has three parts to it. Part one: I am no longer anemic! I'm hitting "normal" by the barest of margins but the fact that my RBC increased at all means that I'm starting to absorb better which means my intestines are healing. And what makes it even more awesome is that I'm not even taking iron supplements. (There was no real use in taking any supplements if I was too damaged to actually absorb them and now that I can absorb them, it looks like I won't be needing them. Yay!)

Part two and part three of the blood test news are my tt IgA and tt IgG numbers. Both are used to diagnose celiac disease so these are pretty important numbers to watch. As the doctor explained it to me, IgA is a more acute measurement that basically tells us how I am doing on my gluten-free-ness. Anything under a four is a negative and, in my initial blood tests, I was at >100. I'm now at three. Yay!

IgG is more of a chronic measurement of celiac disease. Anything greater than five is a positive and my initial blood test had me at 320. Current I'm at 12. And, okay, it's still positive, which you would think would be bad, but it's not. Because not only have I had a huge drop (showing things are improving), it means that celiac is the most likely cause of the problems I'm still experiencing. Basically, if my IgG was negative but I was still dealing with all this pain and swelling, etc, we'd have to start looking for other problems. But since it is positive, chances are good it is all still celiac-related. And if I had a 300+ point drop in six months (with at least one accidental glutening in that time), dropping another few points and getting rid of my remaining issues seems just around the corner!

And yeah, I am still having problems. Joint pain in my hands and feet (though it has shifted to more swelling and feeling sprained/sore and less arthritis gritty and stabby, so yay?) and some issues with some (non-gluten-containing) foods (apparently I can eat potatoes find but potato chips try to kill me - what's up with that?) and having that going on can totally sap my energy (and mood!) sometimes. But even with all the ups and downs, the general trajectory is up. Hopefully by the time I hit my one year check up, all this will be a distant memory. The doctor did make a point that I would never be normal again but I should be able to get to feeling normal. And really? That's all I want.