kittty

I have a follow-up appointment with my doctor in a few weeks. She doesn't know much about celiac, so every time I see her I bring a few little factoids that I've picked up (mainly from this site) and some articles from Medline. At first I thought she would be offended by this, but she actually appreciates it. The fact that she's willing to learn and listen to me makes her a better doc than any of the previous ones.

 

Before cutting out gluten I had intense sinus pain and TMJ. She sent me for CAT scans, which can back negative. I also had my wisdom teeth removed in case that would help, and it didn't. She's a bit dubious about the sinus pain/TMJ link to celiac, but aside from explaining to her that other people have the same symptoms, I'm not sure exactly why.

 

Does anyone know the technical reason why celiac causes these kinds of facial pain?

 

Thanks!

Sorry for the long post!

I've been on Yasmin, and later the generic Ocella, for almost ten years. I've never had any problems with the pills, they fix my erratic cycle and PMS symptoms, and I'm happy that they're gluten free. I've tried other pills and none of them work as well for me.

Yesterday I went to pick up a refill and the pharmacy had changed generics to Syeda. I didn't know that pharmacies can just switch out generics without informing the customer, because generics only have to have the same active ingredient but can have completely different inactive ingredients. Ocella and Yasmin have identical ingredients, but I wasn't sure about this one.

So I took the pills home, and went online to look up Syeda. The first thing I find is a forum where people who had been on Yasmin/Ocella for years are complaining about unpleasant side effects with Syeda and Zarah, which is another new generic. I looked up the inactive ingredients for Syeda, and they are very different from Yasmin/Ocella. I can't find any information about Syeda or Zarah being gluten free, except for a post on this site which never gave any answers, and revealed that the company was being extremely difficult about answering the question.

So I went back to the pharmacy and explained that I didn't want to risk taking a generic that may or may not be gluten free. The pharmacist was a total b-word about it, but the assistant was very helpful. She called around to all of their other stores until she found a store that still had a couple of packs of Ocella, and is having them shipped to my store for pick up today. Hooray! That takes care of one month.

I called around to other pharmacies in the area, and all of them have switched from Ocella to either Syeda or Zarah (there are still a few left to call that aren't open on Sundays). Apparently the inactive ingredients in the new generics are cheaper, which is why everyone is making the switch - more profit for the pharmacy.

My questions are:
Where can I get Ocella?? Does anyone know of any large chain drug stores that still carry it as the Yasmin generic? I tried Kroger, WalMart, and Walgreens with no luck.

If the other generics won't disclose if their products have gluten or not, can I ask the insurance company to cover more of the cost of Yasmin? They covered almost all of the cost of Yasmin before Ocella came out, but where there is a generic I have to go with that to get the savings. I don't think it's right for the insurance company to force me to go with a generic that may harm me. I have Caremark prescription insurance.

This is the first time that celiacs has caused a major frustration in my life, and it took a lot to not start crying in the pharmacy (especially when the pharmacist was shooting dagger eyes at me). Why can't the FDA force pharmaceutical companies to disclose allergy/intolerance information?

I found out today that Pizza Hut serves gluten free pizzas in Australia. Sorry if this is old news, but does anyone know if they'll bring them to the US? Has anyone here from Australia tried one?

Since this is such a wonderful forum for celiac advice, I'm wondering if anyone here can help me with this problem or point me to a good resource.

My husband has been very thirsty and feeling hot all the time for about the last year. This morning he got the results of blood work and he is positive for diabetes with blood sugar through the roof. It was a shock to both of us because he doesn't fall into any of the risk categories for diabetes, and just two years ago all of his blood work was normal.

The only difference is that for the last year he has been taking Lexapro for PTSD. I just looked up Lexapro, and diabetes is listed as a potential side effect. Who knew??!! He doesn't receive the side effects paper with his prescription, and it isn't listed as one of the common or uncommon side effects when we first investigated this medication. It's listed as an "after marketing finding", and they sure didn't make that widely known.

So I was wondering if anyone else has had an experience like this? Do you know of any resources to find out more information? Do you know if coming off the drug could reverse the diabetes, or if this will now become a life-long issue?

Thanks for any information or advice you can give!

"I made you some gluten free cookies. Come and get some!" was the last thing I heard from a coworker before getting glutened big time on Monday. It was so sweet of her to go out of her way and make me special cookies, but to her "gluten free" and "wheat free" are the same thing, and they definitely weren't gluten free.

Then there was the Subway incident, where Subway sandwiches were served at a gathering and I was told to take the fillings out of as many sandwiches as I wanted since the bread was off limits. When I politely turned down the offer there were some very disappointed faces. In their minds they had "solved" my dilemma by offering fillings, and didn't understand why I would refuse their efforts.

What do you do/say when people go out of their way to try and be helpful, but really miss the mark? I'd much rather they didn't bother to try and accommodate me, and just let me find options on my own that I know are safe. But at the same time I don't want to offend them.