Lower Medication Dosage On Gluten-free Diet

When you've been diagnosed with celiac disease, it means your body can't tolerate gluten, a type of protein contained in the grains wheat, barley and rye.Your body responds to gluten ingestion by sending immune system cells to attack the small intestines, destroying the intestinal lining. Since this intestinal lining performs most of the work of absorbing nutrients from the food you eat, people with undiagnosed or newly diagnosed celiac disease don't absorb nutrients well. They also don't absorb medications well. Therefore, once you've received your diagnosis and started your gluten-free diet, your doctor may recommend adjusting the dosage of any medications you take.

Celiac Disease Basics

You inherit the propensity to develop celiac disease, which is a genetic condition that runs in families. Not everyone with the genes for the disorder actually develops it, however. Celiac disease also requires a trigger, which can take the form of pregnancy, significant stress or a serious health crisis. The disease occurs more often in people with Northern European roots, especially Irish heritage, and affects an estimated 1 percent of Americans, according to Ohio State University. When you have celiac disease, you must follow a gluten-free diet to heal your intestines and protect them from further damage. There are no medications approved to treat the condition.

Additional Conditions

People with celiac disease suffer from autoimmune conditions such as thyroid disease and diabetes more frequently than people in the general population, according to the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University. They also suffer from osteoporosis more often. Therefore, if you've just been diagnosed with celiac disease, you may be taking medication to treat another condition. Thyroid disease patients, who often have low levels of certain thyroid hormones, generally take replacement hormone medication. Diabetes patients, meanwhile, might need injected insulin or other medications that improve their bodies' sensitivity to their own insulin. If you've just received your celiac diagnosis, your doctor will need to monitor all of these medications, since you may need to adjust your dosage.

Specifics

Many celiac disease patients who also have low thyroid function find they need to take lower doses of their thyroid medication once they've started the gluten-free diet and their intestine has healed some. That's because they're absorbing the medication better, and also may reflect some healing in their thyroid due to the gluten-free diet itself. In a few cases, patients have been able to discontinue their thyroid medication entirely once they began to eat gluten-free, according to the "American Journal of Gastroenterology."

Celiac disease patients with diabetes also may find that their blood sugar levels even out on the gluten-free diet, leading to the need for less insulin or other medication. If you have both celiac and diabetes, however, you'll find that many gluten-free foods contain high levels of easily digested carbohydrates, which can spike your blood sugar instead of lowering it. You'll need to experiment some to determine how your body reacts to its new diet.

Considerations

Even if you think your medication dose needs to be lower following your celiac diagnosis and your new gluten-free diet, you shouldn't attempt to adjust your medications yourself. Talk to your doctor instead; she likely will want to perform some blood testing to see if you really do need less medication for the same effect. In some cases, you may need to lower your medication dosage gradually as your intestines heal and your absorption of nutrients improves.