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Could Celiac Impare Your Ability To Absorb Medication?

Pegleg84

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Pegleg84 Collaborator
Pegleg84
Posted

Hi Everyone,

I've been gluten free for over a month now and doing really well, very few known glutenings, hardly ever have stomach pains or get bloated. It's been good.

I just moved to Toronto last week, and came down with a bad cold on the weekend. Ever since I got sick and started to take some cold medication, etc, i've been feeling very light-headed, like i'm floating up and down. It might be sinus pressure, but it seems to get worse when I take medicine or drink alcohol, something that hasn't really happened when i've been sick before. This might be a crazy idea, but could damage from gluten make it more difficult to absorb medications? If so, is my body now absorbing all of it and getting super stoned or something?? Or am I crazy and it's just my sinuses, or the new environment, or something?

If anyone has any experience or ideas, celiac related or not, it would be greatly appreciated.

Peggy

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psawyer Proficient
psawyer
Posted

Malabsorption is a part of celiac disease.

This is because the ability of the small intestine to absorb nutrients is compromised by the damage to the villi. It is no different for medications. As the villi heal, absorption increases. Dosage levels of medications may need to be decreased.

An exception to the rule involves diabetes. As absorption improves, blood glucose levels can rise, requiring an increase in dosage of insulin or oral meds.

YoloGx Rookie
YoloGx
Posted

Very often medications have gluten in them--if not obvious it might be trace gluten. You need to check your meds out. hard to do when you are ill of course. There is a list I think on this celiac.com site...

Also, I would avoid all alcohol. Most of it is grain based. I have found even alcohol that is supposed to be safe often isn't for me. For me it needs not to be made of grains, bottom line.

You could also be trace glutened from other sources in a new environment...

Bea

Bell Apprentice
Bell
Posted

Also some cold meds can make you feel a bit spacey. I know that anything with phenylephrine in it tends to make me feel a bit vacant. At the moment I'm getting a similar thing from some nasty antibiotics, and it used to happen if I had anything with nutmeg in, though that's not so bad now.

Some substances either directly affect your moods and brain, but some are just difficult for the system to deal with, and for some people the first thing to go is mental clarity. For others it might come out somewhere else...

Pegleg84 Collaborator
Pegleg84
Posted
  • Author

thanks guys

I'm starting to think that it's probably my sinuses, since it's been constant for almost a week. maybe i'm getting sinusitis or something. I don't think i've gotten glutened, but could be that, as Peter said, now that i'm absorbing things better the meds are hitting me much harder. but havn't taken anything other than ibuprophen in the past couple days and still floaty. so, if I'm still not better in a few days (especially once my cold goes away), i'll go see a doctor and check if its not a sinus thing. I'll figure it out.

But I will definitely be more careful with medication now.

thanks a bunch

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