Hydroxychloroquine and bowels

[Comeonpeeps]

Hi all, this medication has an amazing effect on my bowels, I go regularly and if I reduce it I get terrible constipation. This was one of the first things to improve when I originally started on it, along with the fatigue.

I really do feel that my bowel issues are connected to my inflammatory situation. Does anyone else find the hydroxychloroquine helps them in this way?

[Barnclown]

Hi comeonpeeps: good question

i’ve been managing slow GI transit dysmotility all my life alongside hEDS (the connective tissue disorder hypermobile ehlers danlos syndrome, which is associated with GI dysmotility and Intestinal Failure) & infant onset lupus & early onset CVID (Common Variable Immunodeficiency (hypogammaglobulinaemia)), sjogrens, small vessel vasculitis etc etc. My NHS medics acknowledge that all these comorbidities are involved in the progressive debilitation of my GI tract

I’m 64 and after childhood, my lupus diagnosis got lost until i was in my 50s. So by the time i started daily lupus meds with hydroxy in 2011, i’d already spent decades coaxing my transit via a high fibre Low FODMAP diet....and, although i can’t say hydroxy helped reduce my chronic tendency to constipation....for sure, when rheumatology added daily prednisolone + mycophenolate cellcept to my daily meds i TRULY noticed a reduction in several of the abdomen/visceral hypersensitivity symptoms which have always accompanied my slow transit manifestations...and my consultants are acknowledging this reduction in symptomatology does indicate inflammatory process is part of the causes underlying my dysmotility’s current segue from Intestinal Insufficiency into Intestinal Failure.

So, i’d be the last person to say either that your bowel issues do not have an inflammatory component or that hydroxy can’t be helping to minimise your tendency to constipation

Quite a few of us have been having discussions here about this during the past 12 months, so here are links to a few of those posts (in chronological order). All this time gastroenterology has been investigating my case and discovering that inflammatory process is involved + that increased daily prednisolone helps my GI tract to stabilise and function just that important bit better:

healthunlocked.com/lupusuk/...

healthunlocked.com/lupusuk/...

healthunlocked.com/lupusuk/...

Maybe something in those links will be useful to you...especially the mayo clinic link at the end of the latest duscussion

I hope you’ll keep us posted as you learn more about your version of this

🍀🍀🍀🍀 coco

[Comeonpeeps in reply to Barnclown]

Thank you Coco, that's really interesting x

[Barnclown in reply to Comeonpeeps]

Glad if anything in there helps XOXO