Gluten in Escitalopram??

[Farmerswife]

Recently diagnosed with Celiac and trying to figure out all the things. One concern I have is I have taken Escitalopram for years. Insurance does not pay for name brand so that is not an option. Cannot get it compounded at any local pharmacy. The generic brand that I have says it is not gluten free due to it having cornstarch in it. From what I understand cornstarch is gluten free. I do feel "glutened" most of the time when I take this. Anyone else have this issue and did you find a solution? Everything I google says Escitalopram is gluten free, but I don't think this one is. 

[trents]

Welcome to the forum, @Farmerswife!

You are correct. Cornstarch should not contain gluten unless there is an issue with "cross contamination" with wheat/barley/rye in the processing. Even then, I can't imagine there being enough gluten in those pills/caplets/capsules to cause a reaction. Is this med in pill form, caplet form or capsule form? If capsule, it is possible that the capsule itself is made from wheat. 

Another possibility is that your are "cross reacting" to the cornstarch. Maize is a fairly common cross reactor in the celiac community. But even so, there would likely be little maize (the protein component of corn) in the starch.

Still another possibility, and the most likely one I'm thinking, is that you are experiencing a side effect of the med itself. It is an SSRI. Have you tried other SSRIs. SSRI's listed side effects include nausea and diarrhea. However, Escitalopram has the reputation of having less of a tendency than other SSRIs to produce these side effects. But you never know. Every individual is different. Have you tried other SSRIs?

Edited March 2, 2025 by trents

[Wheatwacked]

Hello @Farmerswife

As @trents said talk to your doctor about changing to a different drug.  I I was given a prescription for Zanax, took one dose and could not sit down for four hours.  Twitching all over, and my eyes felt like they were propped open with toothpicks.  Perhaps the old standard, often refered to as "mother's little helper" Valium would help.

Celiac Disease causes deficiency of vitamim D.  Low vitamin D causes depression.  Starting at 1,000 IU a day I increased every few days until at 10,000 IU after 3 days it hit me "This is sunshine in a bottle" and I haven't been depressed since.  That ended a depression that had lasted from when I was 39 until 63 years old.  It was like an unending SAD Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Another mineral deficiency that helped me was low dose, 5 mg, Lithium Orotate.  It reduced the anxiety that it had to get done now.  Most of our lithium comes in our drinking water.  With everyone drinking filtered or bottled water, we become deficient.  I think it may explain the explosion of mass shootings.  Between low vitamin D and low lithium intake, we are in a mental meltdown.

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Evidence is slowly accumulating that relatively tiny doses of lithium can have beneficial effects. They appear to decrease suicide rates significantly and may even promote brain health and improve mood.  An RDA For Lithium?

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 Lithium in the public water supply and suicide mortality in Texas 

A negative association between lithium concentrations in the municipal water supply and suicide rates was first reported for 27 Texas counties...  This finding was affirmed in the Oita prefecture in Japan... A nationwide Austrian study, however, which used 6460 lithium measurements from 99 districts, found an inverse correlation between lithium concentrations in drinking water and suicide rates

 

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Surge of information on benefits of vitamin D

McCarthy has been employing these methods since February 2007, and patient acceptance has been high. He said he checks each patient’s 25(OH)D level and supplements to reach a target of 80 ng/mL in adults and children. Of the first 1,500 patients McCarthy tested, 40% began with vitamin D levels less than 20 ng/mL and 70% less than 35 ng/mL. Only 1% initially had values within his target range.

According to McCarthy, his target range is based upon several factors:

• A lifeguard study that found vitamin D levels in the 70 ng/mL range up to 100 ng/mL (nature’s level) were associated with no adverse effects;
• Data in patients with breast cancer showing a reduction in the incidence of new cancer with postulated 0 point at 80 ng/mL;
• Colon cancer data showing a reduction in the incidence of new cancer (linear) with postulated 0 point at 75 ng/mL;
• More than 200 polymorphisms of the vitamin D receptor requiring higher D levels to attain same desired outcomes;
• When a patient misses dosing, an attained level of 80 ng/mL gives the patient an additional month of good levels off of vitamin D.

 

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Vitamin D and Depression: Where is all the Sunshine?

They reported that depression (assessed with the Hamilton Depression Scale) decreased in persons who received vitamin D (from 10.9 to 6.2, p = .040) as compared to those who received phototherapy (from 12.6 to 11.3, p = ns). There were no untoward side effects from the dose of vitamin D; however, a limitation of the study was the one time dose. Vitamin D toxicity is an elevated vitamin D level greater than 150 ng/dl. The normal upper limit has been considered to be 55 to 60 ng/ml, but is being re-evaluated as levels up to 125 ng/dl have been reported without adverse effects (Holick, 2006). 

 

[Scott Adams]

You can search this site for prescriptions medications, but will need to know the manufacturer/maker if there is more than one, especially if you use a generic version of the medication:

To see the ingredients you will need to click on the correct version of the medication and maker in the results, then scroll down to "Ingredients and Appearance" and click it, and then look at "Inactive Ingredients," as any gluten ingredients would likely appear there, rather than in the Active Ingredients area.

• https://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/