Hi there - I was just at the doctor's office for my followup since being diagnosed with the TTG test and endoscopy. My doctor mentioned that I "wasn't even that positive" on my bloodtest. She mentioned that the TTG test range was anywhere from 1 to 7 being negative or normal. I had a level of 10.5. (She was telling me that she just diagnosed an asymptomatic Celiac the other day with a ttg level of 130...)

Could someone tell me what this means? My endoscopy showed moderate villi blunting...so I assume I'm just at the beginning of this whole Celiac thing...I'm still confused

...anyways...if someone could help me interpret that number that'd be great ...thanks again...AmandaD

tTG stands for Trans-tissue glutanamise (bad spelling, sorry). It is among the most reliable serologic test for celiac. A tTG of 130 would be a very high number, obviously, probably meaning severe villous atrophy (severe blunting of the villi). Since the tTG number usually corresponds to intestinal damage, it is logical that a low positive like your number would result in minimal to moderate blunting.

Coulter - I've heard you're in high school. You sound smarter than the damn doctors.

You should consider going to medical school.

Thank you! I'm a freshman in high school. Actually, I want to be a doctor

With your quick mind and amazing grasp of a wide range of subjects, I bet you could be whatever you set your mind on. And if you were to be dr., would you specialize? And let me guess, autoimmune disorders?

Not that positive.... is that like "not that pregnant"?

hee...hee...i thought the same thing...

The doctor probably meant borderline--could go either way, since it's not conclusively high, but it doesn't fall in the normal range. But it is phrased oddly

Just don't let Med School spoil you! We all need every good doctor we can get and there are so few of them. Good, intelligient people go to college with the best of intentions and come out brain dead puppets with a prescription pad in their pocket.

Sorry about that. too many bad experiences.

As a matter of fact I wanted to be a doctor (first) or a writer (second) or an interior decorator.
My father said no to med school because women get married and don't use their profession. I wound up as a Rehab Therapist and now work as a news page editor. Not the whole ball of wax - nit close. Claire

I'm hoping I won't be spoiled like that. Maybe I have an advantage, being that I experienced 14 years of misdiagnoses and medications that didn't work before everything was fixed.

It's a weird thing, isn't it? When they did the biopsy, however, the damage was conclusive with the diagnosis of celiac sprue. Interesting that the number was so low, though...AmandaD

If I've understood everything I've read about this correctly, you really shouldn't read too much into the numbers. Thing is that we all have our individual immune systems that may produce different amounts of antibodies. So two people could have the same amount of damage and be feeling equally sick and miserable, but have very different numbers.

Pauliina

Right--it's not ALWAYS representative of the amount of damage, but it is representative of celiac.