Nobody needs a doctor's prescription or permission to make dietary changes. We actually proceeded with a gluten free diet for our daughter on very limited information. She did have a positive antigliadin antibody (one of the weaker markers), and we opted to skip the biopsy and let the diet speak to us. It did. I chose to go gluten free, too, despite negative blood tests, and enjoyed many improvements. You can read "my story" on the first page of The Gluten File. No turning back for us!

A positive response to the diet may be the best test of all.

It is just important to know that once you have gone gluten free, the window of opportunity sort of closes for official testing...unless you put yourself through a gluten challenge later. Most people don't want to do that...especially if they are feeling better. Course... if the diet works... that is enough for many of us .

There are a couple of other do it yourself testing options. One is Enterolab, which does stool testing. This testing cannot diagnosis celiac disease, but determines gluten sensitivity. IMO, if you have noticed an improvement with dietary changes already, this test would probably not tell you anything you don't already know.

There are some places that you can order the anti-tTg test, though. This is the test highly specific to the intestinal villi damage required for an official diagnosis of celiac disease. A positive on this test has about a 95% positive predictive rate that they would find damage on a biopsy, the cornerstone of a celiac disease diagnosis. Some doctors will accept a positive on this blood test as diagnostic, although the a positive biopsy is required for a standard of care - 'gold standard' diagnosis.

If you have any curiousity at all whether you actually have celiac disease, it might be worthwhile doing this anti-tTG test. I think there are a few labs now that offer it. One is: http://www.optimumhealthresource.com/cdscan.html
Celiac Disease is genetically based, so if you do have it, other family members (symptomatic or not) should also be tested for it.

I absolutely agree you should be gluten free.... no matter what any of these other diagnostic tests might tell you. I just wanted to let you know some of the options out there.

Cara