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For imodium users, what does imodium do for you?

75K views 32 replies 17 participants last post by  Miami25 
#1 ·
Imodium for me, no matter how many I take, or how regularly, or what time, does not eradicate diarrhea. It postpones it. I can load up on it at night and even take 1 in the am, (mornings are my worst, as are for many of us) and it will just plug me up for half the day, or the day, and then when I have a bowel movement it is diarrhea again. It makes me not go, yes...but when I do go, it is still diarrhea. I'm not interested in dosing ideas, but rather would be interested in hearing if it firms up your stool or not. Curious about its effect on others.Thanks.
 
#2 ·
It's effect is to slow the bowel and any change in stool is from it getting some extra time in there to have the water extracted.So it doesn't directly effect stool consistency. For some people slowing the bowel down a bit can give them the time they need to firm up the stool.Fiber can effect stool consistency (absorbs extra water) and Calcium Carbonate seems to help some people with consistency issues.
 
#3 ·
It did firm my stools up at first but it has never got rid of my bloating,flatulance,sensitivity,stomach cramps or the feeling of needing to go many times during the day.Depending on the dose you might still get instances of D still though.It does help as a safety net against being 'caught short' while not having toilet access for a short while.
 
#5 ·
Mainly what Imodium does for me is make me not have to go for awhile. The next day I notice some relief as I usually have two bowel movements in the morning, one normal and firm and the other loose, but if I've taken Imodium the day before then the next morning I will either have two firm bowel movements or only have to go once in the morning.
 
#7 ·
For me, it stops me going (eventually). It doesn't make me constipated as I don't feel like I need to go. It just stops me needing to go at all. The first I know of it wearing off tends to be that I do need to go. It can sometimes be quite solid and difficult to pass, and so I don't take another Imodium straight away because I think I must have overdone it and constipated myself. Then ten minutes later I am back with the diarrhoea again
I don't often get cramps, but when I do get them, Imodium does not stop them.
 
#8 ·
Does it help anybody with cramps,bloating or flatulence as i feel it doesn't help anything other than Diarrhoea and excessive BMs?
 
#10 ·
Wind-eze makes me want to go but when I try to I can't,so it doesn't really help me.Besides,I really don't need any more flatulence as it's bad enough and embarassing enough on a normal day
 
#11 · (Edited by Moderator)
Simethicone shouldn't change how much gas you have, but it may break up bubbles in a way that makes it move better for you. But it isn't designed to make you fart more or have more gas volume, it just breaks up the bubbles.I dunno, but most people find the pain and discomfort of trapped gas worse than any embarrassment from farting, but your mileage may vary.To reduce gas volume you either have to stop feeding the bacteria so much, or you have to change the bacteria by taking probiotics that cannot release gas when they digest carbs.General Low flatus diet: http://www.endowsec.com/pated/edtgs12.htm
 
#12 ·
Good advice,thanks.
 
#13 ·
I suppose I should say that I'm taking lomotil now, instead of immodium. I'm still toying with dosages and find I'm taking 1 in the am and either 1 or 2 in the evening. This is all to beat the morning bm. I generally only go in the morning. Let me rephrase, morning for me is usually the first 5-6 hours that I'm up. And it will hit at any time, and for however long it wants. As I'm toying around with dosages I'm trying to make it so that I can have a bowel movement (or 2, etc) in the am, but have it be not such an awful, long experience of diarrhea. When trying to control this, in the am when I feel the need to go, I immediately pop a pill hoping that I'll have a bm and then be okay (perhaps 2 or 3 bms). This usually helps stop me up enough for me to continue with the day after an hour, which is fine. However, i know if I didn't do this, I'd continue to have diarrhea episodes for several more hours. What concerns me is the question of whether or not I'm allowing myself to get out what should get out. I kind of feel like I'm playing god here. Is there danger in controling this, and more specifically since I'm preventing the further diarrhea, am I doing something bad to my system by not letting it come out? Can I get myself backed up even though I'm letting myself have a morning bm. Does my body need to dispose of more stool than I'm allowing?
 
#14 ·
Usually the only real "let it out, let it all out" that you should let continue is if you have an acute GI infection and you aren't having so much diarrhea you are dehydrating yourself. If you are having a bug that makes you have lots of osmotic diarrhea (watery diarrhea every 20-60 minutes for 8 hours to 10 days) you may at some point need to slow things down just so you can get enough fluids in (especially if you are also vomiting).The idea there is you want to let your body get the bad bacteria out. The reason your body has that severe watery diarrhea for hours or days on end with an infection is it trying to flush the bad bacteria out (basically your body is in do-it-yourself colonoscopy prep mode)This is VERY DIFFERENT from IBS diarrhea.You do not have IBSD because your stool is way more toxic than usual or you have a pathogenic bacteria. Your body over responds to various signals (like it is morning, time to wake up) so pushes stool that it should be storing for another several hours to a couple of the days to the end before you are done removing the extra water from it. You add a bunch of water to the food from your body at the beginning of the process and you recycle that water out in the colon over the course of a day or three so you maintain a better water balance.It isn't dangerous to let your body finish processing the regular normal just like it should be stool like it would do if you didn't have IBS. When it is pushed out before the processing is done, that is when the stool is soft and loose and when you keep pushing stool to the end before its time that is from the "over-reacting" thing.Stool normally is kept in the colon for up to three days. The colon is designed for this storage and slow removal of water from the stool. It is not dangerous to have some stool in the colon. You do not need to completely flush out the whole colon every day.
 
#15 ·
Thanks Kathleen. That was very helpful. It's quite logical too, I suppose.I'm hoping I can find a way to manage things with Lomotil, at least enough for me to live my life a little more normally and not be a shut in, as I am so often now. Though trying dozens of meds, supplements, diets, different forms of treatments in the past 10 yers, I hadn't yet tried things with lomotil or experimented with it like I am now. I'm praying that i can some how find some control of this seemingly uncontrollable suffering. I, of course, hope the same for everyone here on this site.
 
#16 ·
If I am having an "episode" of really bad diarrhea (constant cramping and explosive movements every 5 to 10 minutes), I have to take a couple immodium to get it to stop. When they kick in, then it just... stops. Cramps usually continue for a while though.This happens to me every few days. The rest of the time, I have non-explosive diarrhea. UNLESS I have taken a lot of immodium, and then I swing back around to constipation, which is just as uncomfortable, but at least I'm not unable to leave the vicinity of the known bathrooms.So I don't take immodium as a preventative unless I know I'm going to be somewhere with no bathroom, because too much will just cause another problem. It's just something to make the bad episodes of diarrhea stop.
 
#17 ·
I started taking immodium last week on thursday. I took 4 that day and 4 on friday. I only needed 1 on saturday. I was absolutely miserable yesterday. Pain, gas that somtimes I could pass and sometimes couldn't. I been miserable today too. I kept having the feeling of needing to go, but I couldn't. I felt so bad I had my husband go buy an enema. Fortunatley things started moving again while he was out and I didn't have to use it after all. From now on I'm only going to use immodium if I am having an especially "runny" day and need to be away from my house for more than just a few minutes.
 
#18 ·
Like some others have said, immodium really only prevents me from going. I take it when I really don't want to, or can't, go to the bathroom constantly. When I do finally go, the stool is always slightly more formed, but that only lasts for one BM. Then I'm back to the constant loose stools. If I happen to take 2, then the day when everything starts moving again is always the worst because it's like 3 days worth of diarrhea shoved into 1 day
I use lomotil the same way, and again have the same result. I personally would rather have to go to the bathroom a couple times with formed BM than not at all, but apparently that's not really possible for me. I hope it helps others in the way of more control -- right now I'm in the middle of one of those days after 3 days of constipation from immodium, and its hell.
 
#20 ·
Thanks Thai. I was wondering if I could take smaller doses of some medicine as a preventative. Such as taking a lesser amount of pepto bismol. Or immodium? Has anyone ever done that? Did it firm up things at all? I really would like to find a happy medium between the daily D and overmedicating myself for a few days.
 
#21 ·
Oh yes, there are many that do it this way.I don't so am no expert but I have read that the best way is to start out slow, like maybe a half tab of Immodium AM and PM for a few days and then go up from there until you find the level that works for you.Maybe someone else who takes it this way will chime in and give you more info.
 
#24 ·
I used to take about 4 immodiums a day, 2 first thing, 2 later on. This would eventually after 2/3 hours help to stop the diarrhea continuing all through the rest of the day. It didn't stop me from still having diarrhea the next day and every single morning I would still have to sit on the toilet for hours before work. If it was a particularly bad morning then sometimes I wouldn't have it the next day but I assumed that would be because I had emptied things so much. So they helped control the diarrhea for that day. If I knew I had to go somewhere it also helped me to know that I had taken them and that they would be starting to work.Now the diarrhea isn't as bad as it was, so I take just 1 immodium every morning and this helps to keep things normal for the moment - until it all blows up again and then I'm back to 2 or 3, which still happens quite frequently.
 
#26 ·
Maybe it won't work all the time BUT is it better than it was?I think that the answer for most of us is to use a combo of things to manage this.If something works a bit then keep at it and maybe try something else.If that helps a bit then you keep on with that and try something else again.I would love it if I could find something that did IT for me but so far no go.I have found SOME improvement with several things however and overall, I am better than I was 2 years ago, when I started on this search.
 
#27 ·
At the begining of 2009 I was taking 5 imodium a day and still having a bm every day, slowly I managed to get it down to 1 imodium per day. Then february this year, the ibs-d got worse again, cramps and left sided colon pain, trapped wind and bloating ande more urgency, saw the gastro specialist and he said up the imodium to 3 tablets per day, I am doing this but I am still having 2-3 very loose bms a day, I seem to be needing more imodium again.
 
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