About 3 months ago my GP prescribed me a trial run of cholestyramine as she’d been looking into bile acid disorder (BAD) as one of the causes of IBS-D (which I'd had for 3 years) and this medication seemed to be very successful in treating it. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I gave it a go!
Results were almost instant – no more diarrhoea (1 bm per day only), no more pain, nausea, gas or bloating and the freedom to eat whatever I like – high FODMAPs included.
It’s taken me this long to put this post up on here as I’ve been trying out all the foods I was previously unable to eat just to be sure of what I was saying but, as I’m pretty certain I’ve now got through them all, it’s time to pass on the info.
It's taken me a while to get the dose right as it’s very much an individual thing and I still fiddle around with it depending on what I'm going to eat and when.
I recently came across an article on the web about BAD and, very interestingly, the following quote from the IBS Network’s Dr Nick Read was included in it:
‘I diagnose bile acid malabsorption quite frequently in people with IBS and I find that cholestyramine is a very effective treatment. I’ve seen patients who have had diarrhoea for years dramatically improve using this treatment. Unfortunately, the impact of bile acid malabsorption in IBS is not well recognised. I would estimate that fewer than 20 per cent of gastroenterologists treat it.’
The only time I have any problems is if I don’t measure the dose properly and overdo it, I then get a bit of wind and bloating - and that serves me right for not taking care!
I hope this helps somebody else out there.
Roz