Medicines for constipation
As with diarrhea, there are several different types of medicines that might be prescribed or recommended by your doctor (remembering that many of these medicines are available over the counter, albeit in slightly weaker forms than your doctor will subscribe).
The most common medicines are:
Lubiprostone is a drug that works by increasing the amount of fluid in your digestive system, thereby making your stools softer which in turn makes it easier for bowel movements to occur. The most common side effects of this drug are nausea and diarrhea, although decreased appetite and rashes can sometimes result from taking Lubiprostone too.
In addition, various different types of laxatives may be prescribed or recommended, including:
• Over-the-counter osmotic laxatives (Milk of Magnesia etc) which add additional fluids to stools to make them softer and easier to pass;
• Stimulant laxatives (Senokot and Correctol) that speed your digestive system up and
• Polyethylene glycol which enables stools to retain more fluid.
With all of these medicines, the major potential side effect is diarrhea, although long-term use of laxatives can lead to other potentially more serious side effects such as dehydration, electrolyte imbalance and in more extreme examples, laxative dependence, a situation where you can never go to the toilet without using laxatives first (or perhaps become genuinely addicted to them).
For cramping and pain
If a symptom of your irritable bowel syndrome is constant pain or stomach cramps, your doctor may prescribe or recommend anticholinergics or antispasmodic drugs such as dicyclomine. Drugs of this nature have a wide range of potential adverse side-effects,including flushing of the face, headache, dry mouth, sleeping difficulties, constipation, increased sensitivity to light and a constant thirst together with decreased sweating.
In addition, perhaps the best-known antispasmodic drug Bentyl has other potential side-effects such as dry eyes and stomach ache. For this reason, if you have a previous history of serious eye problems such as glaucoma, you need to make sure that your doctor is aware of these problems as the medicine may react with other drugs or exacerbate your problem.
Drugs for mental difficulties
As suggested earlier in the report, it is generally agreed that one of the primary causative factors involved in irritable bowel syndrome is stress or anxiety. Consequently, if this is considered to be a major cause of your IBS problems, your doctor may be tempted to prescribe drugs to help you get over the problem with the most likely candidate being antidepressants.
Leaving aside for the moment the fact that stress and anxiety are not the same as depression (which is a clinical condition) and are not therefore necessarily treatable with drugs designed to alleviate depression, many of the best-known antidepressant drugs have a very long list of potential adverse side-effects attached to them.
For example, the majority of antidepressant drugs that are prescribed nowadays are ‘Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors’ (SSRIs) with perhaps the best-known of these being Prozac. The most common side-effects of drugs like Prozac are nausea, agitation and headaches, but other more serious side-effects are relatively common as well.
For example, sexual problems such as loss of libido, inability to achieve orgasm and erectile dysfunction are all relatively common, whilst all SSRIs have been associated with weight gain in both male and female patients.
On top of all of this, there is increasing evidence that people are becoming ever more dependent upon drugs like Prozac, evidence which many people suggest is supported by the fact that in 2005, antidepressants became the most widely prescribed drug in the USA.
Although some doctors welcome this as a sign that people were more willing to seek help and assistance than previously, the majority view this as a sign of increasing dependence on antidepressants as a daily ‘crutch’, something that is becoming an ever more ‘normal’ aspect of society.
In short, if there is a stress element involved in your irritable bowel syndrome problem there is a valid to suggest that the last thing you should be doing is seeking a solution provided by antidepressants. The chances of these drugs bringing you any significant long-term benefits are probably very slim whilst there is a significant degree of doubt as to the efficacy of prescribing antidepressants for stress or anxiety in the first place.
The bottom line is…
There are many different drugs that your doctor might prescribe or recommend if he or she decides that you have irritable bowel syndrome.
However, all of these drugs will manage your condition in one way or another rather than ‘curing’ it and there are many other ways of managing your condition that do not involve potentially harmful drugs.
Which of course brings us to the second major consideration to be borne in mind. All of the drugs highlighted in this section of the report do have potential side-effects ranging from the unpleasant to the positively dangerous.
In addition, because medicating yourself to manage your condition is such a fine balancing act, there will be times that the medicine you are taking will cause as many problems as it solves. For example, there may be times when constipation forces you to take a laxative, in which case you end up with diarrhea an hour or two later (if t takes that long!), so you have gone from one extreme to the other.
This is surely not a situation that you want to find yourself in because one miserable situation is not a great deal better than the other.
This is one major reason why looking at irritable bowel syndrome on the ‘big picture’ basis and dealing with it as a condition that tells you that you need to change your lifestyle is a far more sensible approach than medicating yourself.
By making appropriate lifestyle changes instead of turning to pharmaceutical drugs, you attack the problem at the root cause, rather than simply dealing with the symptoms.
Although there is no real ‘cure’ for IBS, the fact is that if you change as many of the factors that cause your condition as you can, you reduce the likelihood and frequency of irritable bowel syndrome causing difficulties in the future.
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