I was hanging out in the kitchen the other day with my super wife and amazing kids and I noticed that Choochie, my killer 4 pound chihuahua, was endlessly chasing her unusually long tail again. She runs until exhaustion and then stops and looks at me with a face of total disbelief. Before you think I'm crazy, realize that this story translates into the world of patients and health care. I have a lot of stories about patients and even doctors chasing their tails and then looking up and wondering why things are the way they are. Patients take their drugs, do their exercises and everything else that they have read about, were told to do and so forth. The problem is, they still feel terrible. They are feverishly chasing their tails with every treatment trick they can gather and in the end they stop, exhausted, look up and wonder.
One of the greatest examples of this is using prescription or over the counter drugs that contain gluten. Before we even get going here I want everyone to clearly understand that I have no problems with giving a patient medication when they need it, so this is not a blog that is meant to hammer the drug industry. Next, if you are a skeptic regarding gluten contributing to or causing a multitude of diseases, then you just need to go to pub med or google search and read the literature available. You could not read all of it if you spent your entire life trying to do so, and most of it has been around for years. It is no longer a question that those who are gluten intolerant in one form or another will ultimately suffer from gluten exposure, especially with daily, chronic exposure. It is also a fact that gluten intolerance is one of the greatest health problems in the entire world. This is because it most often goes undiagnosed, it contributes to hundreds of other expensive and costly medical conditions and the awareness of the situation is still in it's infancy when you look at the big picture that surrounds gluten related scenarios. As a result, many people suffer endlessly not knowing what is going on while their doctor continues to poison them with a medication that contains the one ingredient that is slowly killing them - gluten.
Picture this. You have an underlying inflammatory condition. Maybe you have any arthritic condition. Maybe you have an inflammatory bowel condition, a thyroid pathology, diabetes, a degenerative brain disorder, anxiety, depression or an autoimmune disease. The list literally goes on and on and on. Picture having one of these conditions and you are taking medication to control that condition and you find out that the one thing that can agitate, perpetuate or even cause your condition is an underlying intolerance, reaction, sensitivity or autoimmunity related to dietary gluten. Then you find out that the medication that you are taking daily is giving you a nice heaping, helping of gluten. Do you understand the chihuahua tail chasing analogy now????
Here are some of my favorite tail chasing stories. A patient that has anxiety and is taking generic Xanax (Alprazolam). Alprazolam is suspect for containing gluten. There is literature that demonstrates that patients who have issues of gluten intolerance can have a 500 percent increase in episodes of anxiety. Another one is spastic colon and Levbid. Levbid is often a drug that is used to actually treat GI symptoms caused by gluten exposure. Amazing!!!!! The drug actually has gluten in it. That's like taking a drug that treats arsenic toxicity and it has arsenic in it. The good news is that the generic drug for Levbid, Hyomax SR, does not have gluten in it and this drug actually does help GI symptoms with no additional exposure. Another great one is Lovastatin for elevated blood lipids and cholesterol. How about this one - Novolin 70/30, a form of insulin. There are reams of information correlating a connection between diabetes and issues related to gluten. Last but not least are supplements. I'm not going to go into the laundry list of supplement companies that put gluten into their products, but you would be totally astonished at the number. Research your supplements, and don't let them give you the run around when you ask them. Stick it to these people!!
So what is the take away educational point of this post. Here it is. If you have a chronic illness or suspect that gluten might be a key to your health related issue, then get it checked. You can do it yourself, https://www.enterolab.com/. I HIGHLY recommend that you find a doctor that can help you with this journey however. The next educational point is that you should check ALL your medications for gluten as an ingredient. You Can check some of these at http://www.glutenfreedrugs.com/. I ALWAYS recommend that you call your pharmacist or call the manufacturer of the drug that is in question. Again, don't let them give you the run around, stick it to them and make them send you the information about the drug you requested. This is especially important if you are having to take a drug that is going to be long term, like Insulin, or blood pressure medications.
The conclusions are clear. Stop chasing your tail. Find out if you are gluten sensitive, reactive, intolerant or if you have full blown Celiac Disease. If you do, check ALL of your prescription drugs, over the counter drugs and supplements for gluten. Remember, over the counter drugs typically have gluten present more commonly than prescription medications. Doing this just might be the one thing you need to do to stop the decline you have noticed in your health (stop the tail chasing). I wish you the best. I can tell you from experience, doing this has helped A LOT of my patients.
