Oh Annie, I'm sorry if it sounded like I was upset - we can't see each other's faces across the Internet! I wasn't upset at all, believe me. I can see how it came across that way, though, so please accept my apologies. Also, I tend to put things in boldface and color that I think (others may not!) are important pieces of information - it's almost NEVER to come across as mad! It's just a personal quirk.....

One of the misleading things about Celiac Disease is that after a person has been on a GF diet for 1-2 years, their antibody levels will usually drop down to normal levels, as their intestinal lining has had a chance to heal - my daughter's numbers were normal a year after she had been GF. A lot of people (and unfortunately, some doctors) think that at that point they are "cured", and that they can start eating gluten again. Nothing could be further from the truth - CD is a lifelong condition, so once a person has been diagnosed with it, it is EXTREMELY important that they understand that they MUST stay on a GF diet for the rest of their life.

Unfortunately, there are some people out there who "had" Celiac as a child, and their parents were told that if they quit eating gluten for a year or two they would be "cured". And at the time, that was the accepted wisdom - one could "grow out" of CD. Researchers have since found that this isn't the case - many of these same kids grew up and started having problems that were subsequently found to be related to eating gluten after their supposed "cure". They didn't have the same symptoms that they had as children, so they didn't realize that their health problems were their bodies' reaction to gluten!

I didn't realize that Prednisone would make the antibodies go away/not appear in some people. That makes things a little harder then - I would imagine that might mean that a person could actually have CD, but if they are already on Prednisone, they would get a false negative result! Given the adverse health effects of undiagnosed/untreated CD, that could be extremely BAD for someone like Tyler. If he DOES have CD, but his Prednisone is masking the antibody reaction, his doctors might not realize that he needs to be on a GF diet.

As far as a book , there are far more knowledgeable and eloquent folks than me out there who already have some pretty great books out on the market - where do you think I get all of my information? I sometimes think that my analytical brain just makes connections between obscure bits of information that other people might not (my dad, husband, and daughters are the same way!). That's the stuff that I pass along - but always with the disclaimer that I am NOT a medical expert (I just play one on TV...... ).

Anyway, I'm sorry if I came across as short yesterday - it certainly wasn't intentional!