Question about Immodium
#297998 - 01/25/07 05:51 AM
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professor
Reged: 07/19/05
Posts: 77
Loc: Winnipeg, Canada
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Hi everybody!
As some of you already know. I was able to get stable on diet only for a year and a half after being diagnosed with IBS-D. Last fall, the diet alone was not working anymore. So I started to take half a dose of Immodium each morning and the D stop completly for a whole two months!!! I was able to get back on my normal diet and everything was going so well...that is until I got a little stressed because of noisy neighbors that woke me and my wife for 3 nights in a row last week-end, so I guess I got a little sleep deprivation and stress and I got my first D-attack in 2 months this morning.
These noisy neighbors have been stressing us out and depriving us of sleep for a while now. We will be moving may 1th... but in the meantime got to deal with it I guess.
My question is for those who use Immodium as a daily preventer. What's your story? Is it true that after a while the effect of Immodium tend to ware off?
Have a nice day 
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Back when I used it all the time - I don't anymore - I did find that I built up a tolerance to it after a while, and I had to take more and more to get the same effect. At once point I was taking double doses, something I **DO NOT** recommend! LOL
So yes, it is very possible that your body is used to it now, and it won't work as well as it used to.
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Is there a maximum dosage for Immodium?
In Heather's book, she say that Immodium can be used as a «daily maintenance drug».
I've really became good at applying the diet for a while now, but again in Heather's book it seemed that its not enough. Heather's seemed to need to take lots of drugs in order to get stable (some of them looked pretty scary to me) plus the stress management. I think I really have some trouble with the stress management part and I don't know what to do. Any suggestion?
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Quote:
Heather's seemed to need to take lots of drugs in order to get stable
What do you mean by this? I don't think this is the case. She does list several different meds that may or may not work for people. But she also lists lots of lifestyle changes and alternative meds and therapies. What she has given us with her diet info is a guideline to follow that has to be tweaked and adjusted to fit each of our bodies.
The diet, on it's own, w/o any other lifestyle changes generally isn't enough for anyone. Hypnotherapy is wonderful addition! I'd give that a try if you haven't already.
As for Imodium, I think that you do build up a tolerance to it after a while. At least I did. I find that regular doses of Acacia fiber are more effective and much less uncomfortable than taking Imodium all the time. With Imodium I can end up w/ C, gas, bloating if I'm not careful. It doesn't happen very often, but it can on occasion.
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If you're not dead, you've still got time.
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In IBS the First Year (p. 80)
Heather's talk about using Vicodin «several times» a year. She says that in case of a severe attack its «the only thing that works for her».
Thanks, I will try Acacia!
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Hi: Diet is the key but drugs have to play into IBS. Pain is pain just like any other disease. I find the more I venture to try to be normal the more risk of attacks and sometimes major pain. I just started Immodium and know it will wane eventually and I will move on but for now it is a God sent for exacerbations from stress or whatever ticked it off.
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I use immodium, started about 2 years ago in school, I would be stressed about going to school and how sometimes the washroom is inaccessible depending on the teachers, now at this point im always worried about access to a washroom which causes additional stress which can cause more attacks.
I don't think I would recommend immodium, at first its awesome, it stops the problem quickly and allows you to go on with the day... but after awhile you can end up taking up to 10-15 (Immodium chewable or tablets that cure gas, bloating and diarhhea) a day...
I don't think I can really even stop taking it now, the ammount of the tolerance bothers me into thinking nothing else will work.
(if I switch to a different formula, (pepperment caps + soluble acacia supplement) will the new formula work regardless of my Tolerance and dependency on immmodium?
(Note: If you are looking into trying immodium, you should try some other things first, the cost is pretty steep after you get dependent and a high-tolerance... plus you'll end up like me and need it for situations you never worried about before.) 
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It breaks my heart to read these things about Imodium. I've had people tell me on these boards I should be careful with what I write about the diet. Negative stuff about available drugs can also make people insecure you know. Yet I can't forbid people to write about it. However, I do know people that have been on Imodium or a generic for years without developing any tolerance... One person I know about (though not sure he has IBS) has used it for 20+ years without problems. It is also recommended as a preventative here in Sweden for people with IBS-D and it's prescribed for daily use. I seriously doubt they'd do that if everyone developed a tolerance for it. The stronger types of opioids used have a risk of people developing a tolerance and becoming addicted but the constipating effect always remains according to the articles I have read. Imodium has not been found to give problems with developed tolerance in any research study.
If Imodium has lost it's effect for some of you then it can apparently happen, but please don't make it sound like that always has to happen.
In my case for example loperamide is a life-saver. I couldn't have a normal life without it. I do Heather's diet, I use a SFS, I try to exercise at least taking a daily walk, I drink peppermint tea and anise-fennel-cumin tea. I make sure I get 8+ hours of sleep every night, I do yoga, I meditate and pray, I try to relax as much as possible.
It isn't enough! I need the loperamide to be able to have a life. I started taking loperamide in the fall of 2005. I started with 2 pills per day. However that didn't give me enough margins so in Feb. 2006 I started taking 4/day and I have stuck to that dose since then and have even had to go back to 2/day for periods here and there because my bowels got to slow.
For those of you who developed tolerance, how long did it take? And after you stopped taking it did the tolerance go away and if so after how long?
Loperamide is like I said, my life-saver and without it I would not be able to have a normal life at all. I also have problems with my sphincter due to a paralysis disease I had as a child and I'm in the process of getting help with that. Having a positive outlook is crucial for me to have a good life. And I get so scared every time I read bad stuff about Imodium. For me it's a miracle drug. When my bowels are slow I get no D, no bloating and almost no pain whatsoever. If my IBS got really bad again and I didn't have a medicine that worked I'd be forced to have a colostomy to be able to leave my apartment and even then I'd be sick. When my IBS was at it's worst before I got stable with loperamide et.c. I got D and cramps and pain and was so nauseous that just looking at food triggered my gag reflex and I had to focus on my breathing and try to relax to not have to go throw up. I do not want to be that ill again - EVER!!!
So, please even if you share your own experiences try not to be too negative. I don't want to lose my positive outlook.
/Ulrika, IBS-D
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Ulrika - thanks for posting your story! I've had periods where I've needed to take Imodium for months, even years at a time. I never developed a tolerance to it, and I had never heard of that happening until some people shared their stories here. I feel bad for them that it no longer works, but it's important to remember that Imodium still works as a maintenance drug for a lot of IBSers.
I actually only needed to use a small dose (1 - 2 mg/day) when using it as a preventive. I didn't have problems with constipation either. I've had several doctors okay it for long-term management of IBS. Without it, I probably would have missed a lot of classes, work, and social activities.
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Thanks for sharing this. As we all know how much a positive outlook means and how much worrying can affect IBS it's important that those of us who do need to use loperamide as a daily maintenance drug feel we can expect it to keep working. Otherwise there is a huge risk that we make ourselves ill by worrying.
I don't know what factors would affect how the drug works over time, i.e. if it has to do with how much you take, if you vary the dose of keep it constant, et.c. It would be interesting to know what the time frame has been for those who say the drug worked for them at first but not after a while. (Thus maybe making it possible to feel that if you've made it for a certain amount of time, then it's likely that the drug will keep on working for you.)
There are people who have used Imodium or a generic for many years and for whom it still works without any problems. That's great. However it seems the bad stuff tends to stick to the brain more efficiently somehow, so therefore I feel it's important to be a bit careful when writing about treatments, whether it be diet, drugs, therapy, exercise or whatever.
/Ulrika, IBS-D
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