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Pharmaceutical Drug Linzess Making My Illness 10x Worse

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Posted 6/27/2021 8:24 PM (GMT 0)
My name is Billy, I have been dealing with Lyme disease for many years now and late last year I made the worst decision of my life by taking the drug Linzess for digestive problems. Within the first few days it made me feel drastically worse when my symptoms beforehand were already severe enough. Not only did the drug not work or treat my digestion at all, it’s made my illness significantly worse even though I stopped taking the drug over 6 months ago. Somehow it took me a whole month to fully realize it was the medication that was making me feel so horrible. I knew something was seriously wrong with how bad I felt but I thought it was from my digestion being worse because there weren’t any publicly listed severe side effects for the drug. This was a terrible mistake. I soon knew it wasn’t from my digestion because I ended up taking something else that helped with it and my recently extreme worsening didn’t go away but was getting worse. I initially though that after stopping taking the drug I would get back to how I felt before after a few weeks or so, but as the months went by, I realized that was never going to happen with how dangerous that drug is. I took a look at one of the patents for Linzess and there were over 100 different additives listed and it was also specified that the additives were not limited to the list so there could be many more. Specifically mentioned was aluminum which is one of the most toxic heavy metals that exists and can literally cause digestive problems on its own. I do not think it’s a very good idea to lace a drug/medication that’s used for digestive issues with a toxic metal that can cause digestive issues, do you? I also got testing done afterwards and I had tartrazine and chemical signatures show up as really bad and I also had a heavy metal called bi****h show up as severe which I had never heard of before and the test said that it’s used in medicines, great idea. Linzess has made all of my previous symptoms many times worse and it’s also caused me heart pain, insomnia, personality changes, lack of enjoyment, and restlessness. I don’t know why pharmaceutical companies have to lace their drugs with toxic chemicals and additives, it is unprofessional, irresponsible, unreasonable, and reckless. It is now months later after throwing the medication in the trash and my extreme worsening of symptoms hasn’t changed whatsoever. I wanted to post this so that I could maybe prevent this to happening to someone else. Please do not just disregard this because you read it online, this is my life and it’s currently been ruined from that medication and I wish I had known before if this had happened to somebody else.
Posted 6/30/2021 8:16 PM (GMT 0)
I just started taking Linzess (290mcg/capsule) recently. The Dr said that after taking it I'd go to the bathroom within a couple hours, so I'd need to have that time available. I figured after work was the time to take it. The 1st time I took it I didn't go to the bathroom for 4 hours, and it was all diarrhea. I continued going to the bathroom (all diarrhea) for the next 3-4 hours. This wasn't cool because I had to get to sleep for work the next day. The worst part is that I still felt like I needed to go to the bathroom the next day at work.
I didn't take it the 2nd night because I couldn't take the chance of having diarrhea for 4 hours again, including feeling like I had to go the next day at work. The 3rd night I took one and didn't go at all, even though I had a good amount to eat that day. The 4th night I took another, and didn't go to the bathroom again.
The following day I felt like a train hit me. All my energy was gone. I struggled to do the most basic things (I should note that I'm in very good physical shape). I've felt like crap after taking OTC laxatives in the hours before I have a BM, but this was different. The only other time I felt like this was when I was severely constipated, and hadn't had a BM for 6 days. This time was different, because I had just had a BM a few days earlier. This is when I started feeling like something wasn't right.

The medication also made me feel strange. I don't know how to describe it, but I didn't feel normal. Some clear things I experienced were muscle pains and what felt like bubbles forming in my mouth, under my lips (I know that sounds strange, but my best guess is that's a feeling you can get with increased salivation).
After reading the previous post about the person with Lyme's disease, I figured I would post my experience with the medication. I got here doing a web search of Linzess making me feel sick, which will hopefully get others who have had side effects to post here. Ty to the OP... based on what you said I'm not going to take it anymore.
I tried Movantik before the Linzess. It seemed to work well for the first few days, but not after that. I didn't feel strange like I have with the Linzess, so I'm going to see if a higher dose is available that might work.
I'm also wondering if I might be better off with the OTC softener/stimulant I was talking, since these new Rx's might contain some really bad stuff. I'm also going to try to drink more water, since that has helped in the past. There was a time during summer last year when I was drinking about 15-20 bottles of water a day, and I didn't need any laxative meds. It's not easy drinking that much unless you're sweating a lot of it out... otherwise you're going to the bathroom peeing all day. I hope this post helps others who aren't feeling normal while taking the medication.
Posted 7/3/2021 2:38 PM (GMT 0)
Linzess (linaclotide) affects gastric motility, so it could possibly make intestinal infections worse or cause diarrhea. I'm not sure why it would cause what you are describing.

However, this isn't something usually prescribed to patients with tick-borne disease. Most of my bowel problems were due to bartonella infection, endocrine stress (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis) or just side effects from antibiotics. Linaclotide generally isn't useful for that situation.

Also, the high cost of linzess is a major red flag that the doctor might be overprescribing or abusing insurance money. There are some drugs that are expensive but are actually useful (eg atovaquone) but high-priced prescriptions like linzess or januvia often make me suspicious of the doctor.

Post Edited (Quin) : 7/3/2021 11:14:39 AM (GMT-6)

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