www.incontinentsupport.org

My GI doc recommended that I take immodium for chronic diarrhea. He told me to take one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Well, it worked, the chronic diarrhea went away as did my bowel incontinence. I didn't have any diarrhea for the whole week that I was taking it. I'm used to having diarrhea like every day. Now...because of the daily immodium intake, I became constipated. I didn't have a bowel movement for like 3 or 4 days. My belly hurt, it aggravated my internal hemorrhoids and my stool became hard. I quit taking the immodium like 3 days ago after a week of therapy. It took like 2 days to have a bowel movement. It was painful and I leaked stool into the diaper. Miserable. So I guess the immodium isn't going to work. I don't know what else to do? I guess I could take the immodium every now and then like if I'm going out to dinner or to a movie. What else can I do?

Try taking it once per day and make sure you drink plenty of water with it. Twice a day will definitely plug you up bad. Your doctor needs to talk to a pharmacist.

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When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

I'm gonna go with Doug here and say cut back to once per day.

Also, consider increasing your fiber intake... which will help add bulk and solidity to your stools. Metamucil tablets should do the trick, along with some good fruits and veggies.

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~~PuddleGuy

The immodium adds plenty of bulk to my stool. I'm afraid the increased fiber will plug me up even more. As fiber in low quanitities is a bulking agent. I normally take metamucil but have not been doing so with the immodium. I drink plenty of water. So maybe I will try 1 a day...like in the morning.

I tried two Imodium a day, all it did was firm "stuff" up. Sometimes I used an enema but even that caused incontinence as I didn't get all the liquid out before I diapered up. Result, same thing as not using the Imodium. But at least I could judge better when I was going to make a mess and time it for when I was home.

Deen_ad,
I pretty much gave up on the immodium. It plugged me up to bad. As soon as it wore off, I would have issues. But I couldn't keep taking it. Now I just take it when I'm going to places where a bathroom is not close by. Like to the beach, or waterparks, and stuff. If there are bathrooms close by, I don't worry about it. If I have an episode of bowel incontinence while out and about, and I frequently do, I just go to the bathroom and clean up. Its not a big deal and I'm used to it. The situation is probably not going to change. I tried to fix it, but I had no luck.