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Do you take an antispasmodic regularly?

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Posted 12/5/2016 5:46 PM (GMT 0)
During the 9 years of my Crohn's disease, I have been taking antispasmodics on a regular basis. I've taken all types one can think of. When I saw my GI because of my last proctitis flare up, I wanted to ask about this and actually wrote it down in my notes but he discussed something else and it totally skipped my mind.

Now, I should not accelerate the motility as I shouldn't have many bms to give the proctitis time to heal.

The most important question is should I abuse antispasmodics or just leave it when in need of them? I'm now in the middle of a flare up. Would it be wise to stop taking them now?
Posted 12/6/2016 6:12 PM (GMT 0)
Minnie, I took antispasmodics frequently, but not on a daily schedule, before my colon surgery - Bentyl, Librax, Dicyclomine... I was even on atropine once, prescribed by an old doctor who thought I just had IBS. Terrible stuff.

I can't really advise you, but for what it's worth, my GI told me that if taken regularly, the body becomes tolerant to the antispasmodics after about 2 weeks and they then become ineffective, so he advised me to try to not take it daily so that wouldn't happen.

Now, I'm not talking about an antidiarrheal like Imodium.
Posted 12/6/2016 8:48 PM (GMT 0)
JaSanne, thank you. Yes, my GI always thinks of older ones that I haven't taken lately and tells me we need something your body hasn't become tolerant to.

I can't take the risk now of stopping them but the right time never comes. I ran today a lot of postponed errands and realized that I'm really sick and in a flare up and that I have been denying this fact and pretending to he in a good shape :\
Posted 12/9/2016 6:38 AM (GMT 0)
Hi Minnie, I took Librax 3x a day in the past, it usually made me sleepy and hid my symptoms until they were extremely severe. I'd say take them as needed but keep after your doc to figure out what can be done to manage your disease so you don't get used to the improvements until it get so bad even the meds don't work..
Posted 2/10/2017 10:02 PM (GMT 0)
Did any of you use long term Lomotil or Imodium (like, for years)? What happened when you went off of them?
Posted 2/11/2017 2:29 AM (GMT 0)
I took Lomotil for several years. I would usually take 1-2 a day, often more if I had a busy day away from bathrooms. Pretty sure I built up a tolerance so I tried not to take so much except when I really needed it, or switched off with Imodium which didn't do much for me after a while. I finally stopped taking when I was near remission and haven't gone back. Used occasionally it can be helpful but I would avoid using all the time because it's really just masking the symptoms, and it will lose effectiveness so save it for special occasions when you really need it.
Posted 2/11/2017 5:41 AM (GMT 0)
Dave, thank you. Glad that you could manage to stop them and went into remission.Well, I tried but pain returned. When I asked my GI whether it was OK to alternate between two types, he didn't object. It seems I'm still away from remission and it's too early for me to take this step especially that I'm under stress.
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