The problem in your case Rivka is your system is so utterly ravaged by the allergic reaction to gluten that absorption of all nutrients is reduced in efficiency to single digit amounts. The answer is larger doses. Take enough and eventually the correct amount gets through. Doctors training is 99.999% surgery and diagnosis. Your average health store employe know more about nutrition than they do, it's just not taught in medical school. Actualit is, they get half an hour of it in four years. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v10n04.shtml " Histamine, released in an allergic reaction, is the main chemical responsible for symptoms. Antihistamines are commonly prescribed. As with most medicines, there are side effects, most commonly drowsiness. Newer antihistamines claim to have less of this effect and to diminish symptoms better, but my personal experience does not bear this out. Response to these drugs is on an individual basis and varies. Fortunately, there is a natural remedy, without side-effects, that really works. That is vitamin C, due to vitamin C's ability to neutralize histamine. The minimal amount in a daily multivitamin or an orange won't do the trick, but for many adults 2,000 mg every 2 hours until symptoms subside, will. I have had this experience with my patients. According to weight, scale down the amount, but don't hesitate to give repeated doses if the initial dose doesn't finish the job. " "until the symptoms subside" http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/2009/pdf/2009-v24n01-p031.pdf " Carrying on with the work of his colleagues Drs. L. Emmett Holt, Christian Herter and John Howland, Dr. Haas spent many years researching the effects of diet on celiac disease and other digestive disorders. He and his colleagues found that patients with digestive disorders could tolerate dietary proteins and fats fairly well but complex carbohydrates from grains and starchy vegetables made the problem worse. Sucrose, lactose and other double sugars also had to be excluded from the diet " http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1980/pdf/1980-v09n04-p284.pdf " It has been reported that persons with celiac disease, which is made worse by wheat gluten, often have schizophrenic like symptoms; and it has been demonstrated that the incidence of celiac disease is high in schizophrenia (Dohan, 1969). Schizophrenics placed on wheat free and milk free diets have shown considerable improvement (Dohan, Grasberger, Lowell, Johnston, and Arbegast, 1969; Dohan and Grasberger, 1973; Singh and Kay, 1979). " http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1993/pdf/1993-v08n01-p045.pdf " These results implicate potential digestion/absorption problems with wheat and/or gluten-containing grains, especially in light of other reports of celiac disease " http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1975/pdf/1975-v04n04-p297.pdf " Gluten. Hoffer (1973b) believes the gluten in wheat and other grains may decrease absorption of niacin. A high association has been found between gluten enteropathy (celiac disease) and schizophrenia (Dohan, 1969). " http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1979/pdf/1979-v08n04-p253.pdf " In alcoholics several enzyme defects may cause nutritional problems. A deficient enzyme in the intestinal wall, which should digest gluten in wheat, rye and barley, is implicated in celiac disease, a flattening out of the intestinal villi, so nutrients are poorly absorbed, mainly fats, fat soluble vitamins, also carbohydrates, minerals, and proteins. Dohan (1969) found celiac disease common in the mentally ill, and it could cause part of the psychotic alcoholic group. Its presence in mild form could lead to a rapid addiction process; with poor absorption of energy foods, the celiac could use alcohol for his energy needs. Interestingly enough, Solomons and associates also found that celiacs were highly zinc deficient, due to malabsorption and protein loss. They are deficient in other minerals for the same reason to a lesser degree. Perhaps, the gluten-sensitive person becomes the cirrhotic who lacks zinc that we will discuss later. French cites Wisgird et al. on research showing chronic B6 deficient alcoholic monkeys developed cirrhosis, which follows with the B6 deficiency in celiacs. (Reinken et al., 1976). Because gluten and milk lactose reactions (lack of the enzyme lactase) seem to act together (Dohan, 1969), the alcoholic with this problem should go on a milk-free, cerealfree diet. This will cause reversal of symptoms in up to six months, including reversal of psychosis (Singh and Kay, 1976). " You now know more than your doctor does. Both celiac and schiz run in families. Only 66% of people carry the gene that lets them digest gluten. I have an aunt that almost died of celiac. She was on medicine or a while but it really didn't do any good, so she ditched them and control her diet and took supplements. She outlived her husband, and is still fine at 82 now. My dad. Oh Jesus my dad. He's a former Olympic calibre athlete and seriously accomplished, but he can um, be a bit odd at times to put it mildly. And he won't take a pill to save his life unless a doctor says so. Last summer he had a hip replacement and was bedridden and I did all the cooking. I stuck niacin and c into hi oatmeal and sure enough in 3 weeks he was right as rain. Nobody could believe the difference. Then he got back on his feet and cooked for himself and of course slowly declined for lack of these nutrients. But, he had an awful bed sore. 6 week later after trying everything his doctor suggested with no results he gave in and asked if I had anything. I said it' snot abed sore it's thrush handed him a bottle of oregano oil and said apply this. he next day he came running ot screaming "JESUS CHRIST ITS GONE! IT STOPPED HURTING!" Duh. But this one square foot of infection was one purple. I told him tote C but he's having none of that mumbo jumbo. I said when you're sick of being sick, talk to me. Six weeks later he'd given up and asked what todo. tol him to take 12 1000mg vit C pils throughout the day. Next day he comes running out saying "JESUS CHRIST IT'S ALMOST GONE". I lied to him and said he had to take it for three weeks to stay gone, he did and again he was right as rain. You can't tell these people "Look, you're beyond fucking miserable to be around without this and you're so wonderful when you are on it" because they never see the difference. Other than "why were you people so nice when I was sick, you're all against me the rest of the time". It aint us pops, really. To this day he thinks vitamins are rubbish despite the fact they literally saved his ass. He could have died from that complication of the surgery. If you want to see who the boss is see who pays who - your doctor works for you and not the other way around. People criticize what they don't understand so expect resistance and what you'll have to do is say "I've read up on the clinical report and I want to try to switch your help". If they refuse, get another doctor. The correct attitude is "ok, lets try it and I'll monitor your progress". Your dad almost certainly would be right as rain if you could get him to cutout grains and take C, B3 (niacin) B6 and zinc. HE won't of course, he'll think you're trying to kill him, that's the nature of the disease -paranoia and delusion. Make Him beef stew with tons of niacin and C, b6 and zinc in it.Just ad them when it's finished cooking. Hoffers protocol is double the amount of niacin until the voices go away (they will when the correct dose is achieved) then you can back off to 1/5 of that amount. I Don't know if you've noticed yet but schizophrenics are symptom free during a fever so you may have some luck after a bout with the flu or serious infection. But chances are high at any other time he'll be resistant to the idea because the nature of the disease. There is nothing in the literature I can find that suggest niacin and c react with any prescription drug and if you think about it that makes sense.How well would a drug work if it reacted badly with either? They're in our body already ad at all time. Liability issues are so high drug manufacturers that if such an adverse reaction were possible it owl dbe alsted side effect and you'd know already from taking the mutivitrains. But these are a near homeopathic dose and an average person wounded totke 10 at a time to do any good, and you'd need to take 100 at a time to realize any benefit from them. People put 100% faith in doctors and this in many cases overrides common sense. Dad had a pulmonary clot a few years back and they put him on a prescription blood thinner - it's actually a homeopathic dose of strychnine and dangerous as hell. Too little and it wont thin the blood to prevent more clots (and the reason he has this problem is he's the worst sugar junkie ever, this is well known to thicken the blood). too much and it thins the blood so much blood vessels burst and you can stroke out. The most likely place to get ruptured blood vessel is in the sys, it can make you blind . Given he lost one eye when he was 19 this is a serious issue for him. I suggested he use fish oil pills, they'll do the same job. He's not having any of that nonsense thouj They have to monitor the blood levels of this stuff weekly. He found some smoked salmon on sale, reduced from $10 to $2 and because he's "thrifty" he bought like 20 of them.We were all eating this stuff daily. I got a call from his lab with his weekly test results and they asked if he'd taken too much and I asked why. They said his number is supposed to be .4 and it's .2 an d he should reduce the dose of medicine if this keeps up. I told him about this and explained why and his reaction was "So I should stop eating salmon, it' interfering with the medicine" My mum got this and said "no, the salmon is doing the job of the medicine you could stop taking those pills and not risk going blind" He's not having any of that tough, he stopped eating salmon. He hates logic to death and avoids it whenever possible. Unless it involves money, then he's really good at it. People are so weird.