For the gluten sensitive, how do you avoid gluten in prescription medicines? [View all]
I have to avoid gluten because I react, with pain and intestinal bleeding, to even very small amounts. (I get other symptoms, too, but that's the worst.) Once I had bleeding for three months before they figured out that a generic med had been changed and now included gluten. I switched back to the brand name and the bleeding disappeared.
So I try to get the brand name prescription, which is almost always made without gluten. But every time I get a new prescription, I have to go through a new fight with the insurer, with my doctor writing letters about why I need the brand name, gluten-free med.
The first thing I do is call the generic manufacturers. (They won't put information like this in emails or on their websites.) And they usually say that gluten isn't one of their ingredients, but it could be added by the manufacturer as a filler. They pretend they don't have any control over that. And they say that every batch can be different -- some with gluten, some without.
So now I have a new prescription. It's not a new med -- there are generics out there -- but the brand name price is about $450 for a month. So I'll be calling the generic manufacturers tomorrow, and they'll be telling me the same weasly, useless things.
But I really can't take a pill with gluten. So is there any better way than several months battles with insurers, waiting and hoping to be approved?