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Hi Everyone:

Thank you for all your excellent input to my post on constriction in the
throat a few days ago. I had many of you who had similar experiences and got
help for it. For those of you who have, thank you for your insight and
ecouragement.

I mentioned that I thought my medications were the cause of this problem as
two of them contain questionable gluten. I contacted my Internal medicine Dr
last Wednesday, not Dr Murray and told him what I suspected based on the fact
that I went of all meds for two days and had no problems with constriction.
He said he had trouble understanding how a little gluten could actually
affect me in that way. I told him that just a crumb can do damage and that I
cannot even have communion host. I was very upset that he would say that. I
gave him a Celiac Handbook as a gift for his library to read so that he would
know how to handle current and future patients. When he first diagnosed me,
he said that he thought in a five to ten years I could go back to eating
gluten little at a time.  Anyway, as for the medication, he thought I could
get by without the  beta blocker but he really wants me to stay on the 5mg of
Paxil and is exploring the idea of liquid form. If it is from the same
company, what is to say that the liquid does not have gluten in it? I am
trying to understand why Paxil is such a one minded drug for him and other
doctors. The company that makes Paxil must have big incentives for the
doctors to push the drug. I can't see why any doctor would want to push a
certain drug with the idea that it is the sole one to suppress adrenalin
reactions in which I get. Celexa is gluten free as well as serzone, but
obviously they don't provide the needed relief from these rushes. He also
suggested go off the meds entirely. I don't think that is such a smart idea
without a replacement of some sort. You see, I am on the lowest possible dose
of Paxil you can get being at 5 mg and the therapeutic dose is between 20 to
60mg. The same applies to the beta blocker I am taking at 12.5 mg where the
therapuetic dose is between 50 and 300 mg. The low dose provides just enough
to keep things at bay. You mean there is not a comparable drug that is gluten
free?

Anyway, just another example that so many people don't understand this
disease so well including doctors.