Q. I have had stomach pain and diarrhea for years, but over the last few months it reached a crisis. The pain was so bad I couldn’t get comfortable sitting or even lying down. My stomach swelled up like a beach ball.
My doctor didn’t know what was wrong. I finally asked my pharmacist if any of my pills had milk sugar (lactose). Every single one of the half dozen pills I take contains lactose. Even though I am extremely careful about my diet (no dairy), I had no idea that my pills were poisoning me.
Once I found out, I added lactase enzyme pills to my regimen. I’ll be asking my doctor to find substitutes without lactose. Someone else may benefit from my nightmare.
A. Lactose is a common filler in many medications. For those who are highly sensitive to milk sugar, this can cause bloating, pain, gas and diarrhea. Others may need to enlist the help of a pharmacist to discover whether their drugs could be causing digestive distress.
Sometimes diarrhea, gas or cramps may be a reaction to the medication rather than to lactose in the filler. Here’s one reader’s story: “Both medicines I was given for type 2 diabetes, Metformin and Glipizide, caused bad diarrhea. I went to the internet to find out whether others were troubled with this problem and found it was a common side effect controlled by taking Immodium with each dose of those medicines.”
