Loperamide and constipation!

[janke]

I`m not expecting any help here - just needed to have a moan! On Monday morning I had bad diarrhoea and because I had to do a 3 hour car journey I ended up taking 5 loperamide. So of course now I have constipation - didn`t pass anything Tuesday or Wednesday and so last night I had some Movicol - nothing this morning so I used a glycerine suppository and still only passed a small amount.

Fortunately I don`t have to go anywhere today so I will try drinking loads and keeping active. One consultant advised that I take loperamide every day because I usually go to the loo 4 or 5 times - I don`t think he believed me when I said that would just bung me up completely!

[Hidden]

Hello Janke can understand your moan with taking loperamide. Having looked up the drug on drugs.com it does not seem to be indicated to be taken if you have bowel issues.

Diarrohea and other symptoms of bowel trouble suggest the drug should be stopped.

Have you been referred for celiac disease? Your symptoms sound similar to my problem which was diagnosed as IBS. Stress can set it off but I found multi food intolerance were a main part of my problem Dairy, grain egg, are tested for in the UK for intolerance, with the main test for gluten, which can affect your thyroid and your intestines. Other research in the US shows that multi allergens, can affect you quite badly. thepatientceliac.com gives helpful information. Test referrals probably will take a while with referral to gastroeneterologist but you could ask your GP for dairy egg and other tests if you have unknown problems which you want to pinpoint. I went to a branch of Alphega chemists which you can locate on a uk map. The benefits of this test over NHS is that it tests for wheat as well as gluten and does far more foods which may help you remove the triggers from the diet.

It has helped a lot. It screened 64 foods by a smart test. I learned more about my health and diet after a few minute finger prick test, than I knew for forty years or more. I did not have a gluten allergen but a multi grain dairy, egg, and others. This can mean removing drinks or foods with wheat rye barley or malt, and vinegar and salad dressings with these grains mixed in them. Lactase intolerance due a form of dairy allergen may cause all those trips to the wee room. Hope this might be of interest.

[ELAGABALVS]

Weel... I don't know exactly how to respond. I have diarrhoea predominant IBS and I have had more of my fair share of urgent trips to the loo, many tims not quite making it there and winding up well, you know, experiencing eruptions of tan lava in my pants. But Maybe for the booth of us loperamide is not necessarily the answer. We want to put the emergency brakes on the Hershey squirts, but not wind up 'going.in reverse' (i.e. experiencing constipation).

So I dunno, maybe using Kaopectate would be more gentle and halt the diarrhoea, but not produce the other end of the spectrum (Bristol Stool Scale). It might help the both of us, and sort of well… 'normalise' things a bit. I am no GP but only one who has frequent bouts of the Delhi trots. Experiencing several trips to the loo can be rather 'inconvenient, but constipation to me is worse! It is stuck up there, as diarrhoea flows out not 'bloating' the rectum.

One might also ight give this one a try. Now whether such is available in the UK, I just don't know as I tend to doubt it, but there is something for diarrhoea from the Netherlands called Tasectan (and no, I don't work for Tasectan, so I am not necessarily 'promoting' their product) but I must say that it could help, here is their site for information sake: (tasectan.ie/) I have used it only once, and it did have some positive results that may be milder than Loperamide. Would not hurt to try. Hope all this helps!

[BigSpaceman]

I take atleast 1 Loperamide everyday to help with my IBS, they sometimes don’t even work for me so I have to take 2-4 on a bad day. I usually go about 10 times a day even with Loperamide.