One of the last places most people would expect to find lactose is in their medications, strangely thought there are hundreds of common medications that contain lactose in one form or another and the manufacturers may or may not have to tell you about it.

In many cases there is so little actual medication in a pill that the manufacturer has to use something as a filler to make the pill big enough for you to see, let alone take it. Other reasons to use lactose in medications include the fact that it prevents caking, which can be a good thing especially when it comes to chewable tablets.

It can also be sprayed onto the outside of a pill where it dries as a nice hard, smooth and shiny coating that makes it easy to swallow and then dissolve rapidly once it is in your stomach. However for most lactose intolerant people the miniscule amount that is use on or in a pill is not enough to cause a reaction.

Examples of lactose being used in medications that you would not expect to find it in, nor will you find it on the label is many birth control pills. The seven day that are placebos are completely made up of fillers and contain a comparatively large proportion of lactose.

In reality the amount of lactose in one 8 ounce glass of milk is about the same as you would find in 1000 ordinary medication pills so unless you are one of the very unlucky people who have extreme lactose intolerance you are not going to be affected by the trace amounts of lactose in most medications.

If you are one of these unfortunate people there are alternatives and you can look at the online version of the Physicians’ Desk Reference which will give you a complete list of all ingredients in prescription medications as well as point you towards alternative medications that you can check for lactose until you find one that has no lactose in it.

Check with your doctor and ask him to prescribe you only those medications that are listed as lactose free and make sure to check the packaging of all OTC medications before you buy them. While there are currently no laws to force manufacturers to label these medications as lactose free, most of them do so.