Posted by fachad on March 24, 2002, at 3:58:11
In reply to IBS and Elavil » fachad, posted by IsoM on March 23, 2002, at 13:22:44
Yes, my wife's IBS was very severe. She did not have any IBS until one day in Nov 1992. She woke up with a stomachache, vomiting, and diarrhea.
Despite many visits to her doc and trials of different meds her symptoms never abated and continuously got worse. The pain was so bad she could not sleep. She vomited 5 or 6 times a day and had diarrhea 5 or 6 times a day. The pain and diarrhea were not even slowed down by huge doses of Percocet and Imodium. The vomiting would abate a little with composine suppositories. We would have to go to the ER, with her holding a trash bag for the drive, every 2 or 3 days so they could give her IV fluids for the dehydration.
Of course all the tests, which were a major hassle to get the HMO to consent to, showed NOTHING. Upper and Lower GI, nothing. Gallbladder, nothing. This went on from that day in November 92 when it started until March 93, almost 5 months of daily and nightly pain, vomiting and diarrhea. She was just crying all the time and we did not know what to do. Finally the greedy HMO authorized a visit to a GI doc (we would have self paid anyway, but they finally came thru) and he was the one that put her on Elavil.
He said that most people with IBS responded to 25 mg of Elavil, but let her titrate up the dose until her symptoms were gone. She ended up at 225 mg/day.
A few years later she was able to get down to 150 mg/day, but anytime we have tried to go lower, she ends up in the ER. Once we tried to switch to doxepin, and she ended up in the ER.
So she's resigned to taking 150mg Elavil every day for the rest of her life, and despite the unpleasant side effects, we are both so thankful that it worked so well.
> It's interesting that your wife has found that Elavil (amitriptyline) helps her IBS. My oldest son has IBS too. Now that he's in his latter 20s, the frequency of attacks have gone way done, but so has his stress level.
>
> When he was in his late teens, early 20s, he took a new med at the time, called Dicetel. He had been on clomipramine for his depression. It worked better than any other TCA for him. Dicetel is a selective calcium-channel blocker & it nicely blocked the wayward nerve impulses just enough that his digestive system resumed its normalacy. It's a prophylatic med but now that his cases are so infrequent, he no longer takes it. I don't know if it's available in the States. For him, it was a life saver. I'm sure you know how *severe* it can get & how unbearable the pain & nausea.
poster:fachad
thread:99599
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020322/msgs/99806.html