[knothappy]

Does anyone know if you can get ischemic colitus from Imodium taken on a regular basis or is it just a result of the drug lotronex? In fact, I am wondering if you can get it from any other drug taken for IBS diarreha that slows the motility fo your bowel?Pretty soon there will be nothing to take for our symptoms and we will be living in toliets!

 

[Judy]

I don't know the answer to that question but I have wondered myself if taking Immodium can cause long term problems like that. I have been taking it for two years now and think about all kinds of things like that that could happen from sloweing things down with Immodium. Although I hve never heard fo Ishemic colitus until this business about Lotrenex came about. I worry about toxins staying in and causing problems...but then again nothing seems to stay in me very long even with the Immodium..so maybe it's no more than if you're constipated naturally...those people dont' seem to get colitus!

 

[JuliaNYC]

I don't know the answer to this for sure, but Imodium has been on the market for many years, first as a prescription-only drug and then in the over the counter version we're all familiar with. I think there would have been some publicity by now if it were associated with ischemic colitis. For what it's worth, that is not listed as a side effect in "The Nurses' Drug Handbook," But there is this caution under "Patient Teaching:" Advise patients with acute colitis to stop drug immediately if abdominal distention or other symptoms develop and notify doctor." and "tell patient to report nausea, abdominal pain or abdominal discomfort." There is also a notation that if Imodium is used for chronic diarrhea, it should be stopped if there is no improvement after taking 16 mg per day for 10 days.In my pre-Lotronex days (soon to be resumed), I used to get relief on 6 - 8 mg a day.

 

[Kathleen M.]

There are different mechanisms that drugs can use to slow the colon. Immodium and Lomotil work by a completely different mechanism than Lotronex, so it wouldn't be suprising if the side effects profiles were different. Immodium and Lomotil work on opioid receptors in the gut. So they act more like Morphine in how the stop diarrhea. In some people with Inflamatory Bowel Diseases one of the only things that will slow the gut down is Morphine. Lotronex works by blocking a serotonin receptor in the gut. Now in people with Ulcerative Colitis who are already at risk for toxic megacolon (sounds like a rock group not a disease)Immodium seems to up the risk but AFAIK only in that already at risk population.Given the widespread usage of Immodium and the numbers of people who use it chronicaly at high dosea, If it did cause those sorts of problems it would have been noted by now.K.