Could anyone suggest the next steps for me? I have suffered with IBS for almost 10 years now. I am mid-thirtys and I find that my symptoms are having quite a severe impact on my life. Main symptom is urgency to go to the bathroom. So with little or no notice I might find myself needing the toilet and the inconvenience of this is really affecting me. Have tried many many things including food intolerance testing (dairy is an issue for me), acupuncture, hypnotherapy, acidophilus, extra strength Vit B complex, fibogel sachets, mebevorine. Frequency used to also be an issue and liquid/soft stool but these 2 symptoms have been rectified since starting Amytryptilline about 7 months ago. However, still the urgency remains. Two weeks ago, my doctor prescribed Buscopan to be taken as well. Still, I dont think this is solving the problem. All blood work I had done was normal, I'm not coeliac and inflammatory markers were normal. My question mainly is should i now try Prevalite or go down the route of investigating for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and try treatment with Rifaximin, glutamine and probiotics to promote gut healing?? Any advice appreciated.
Hi, heck my post : https://patient.info/forums/discuss/100-working-treatment-for-my-ibs--257543.
I have also tried what you tried and it did not work for me, my solution was Glutamine and Probiotics to be 100 % normal.
Good Luck.
Thanks Maurice. Can I ask you how long and the dosage of Rifaximin that you took? Also, eaxctly which probiotic do you use as there are many available and is glutamine also a prescription med or is it just a supplement that can be got in the pharmacy? Thanks
I don´t remember the dosage, it was a year ago, but you can check online for Dr. Pimentel dosage for Rifaximin, but check also with a doctor like I did.
The Probiotic that I used was : " Ultimate Flora Critical Care 50 Billion "
But you can buy some other brand with the 50 Billion strains.
L-Glutamine is a over the counter product, it is also used by peple that workout at gym. You can buy it anywhere.
Great, thanks. I will check with my own doctor regarding the rifaximin but by any chance do you remember if it was a long or short course of antibiotics? Dr. Pimentel seems to suggest 14 days of treatment online. The reason I ask is because taking antibiotics can prevent me from going to work so would prefer if it could be a short course if possible.
Hi Carolyn,
I agree with Maurice. I am now taking glutamine which he recommended and which I researched as I do anything I put into my body. The probiotics I have been taking for years in my morning fruit/'almond milk' smoothie (great way to start the day...your insides will love you for it!)
I am not sure however if you have diarrhea....or constipation with diarrhea. My situation was the latter which I also had at your young age and even younger. Taking magnesium citrate or magnesium glycinate at bedtime with a bit of almond milk...and I am as right as rain in the morning. You want to empty your large intestine every morning fully so you don't have urges during the day. But again, this is for constipation related diarrhea. We dont' get enough magnesium in our diets so this is a plus; good for sleep and for the brain.
I hope that you can resolve this issue without drugs. You are so young to already be taking prescription medication. Look up the side effects to be fully informed. With the internet at our disposal, we can access credible sites and learn a lot about how the digestive system works etc.. You want to be in control of your own body and that requires understanding it and listening to cues and responding accordingly.
Good luck, Carolyn!
Hi Robin, thanks for your response. I don't suffer from constipation. Its only diarrhoea and urgency. Yes, I am young but after many many years of these symptoms, I'll try anything. Did you also take the initial Rifaximin antibiotic course? How much glutamine do you take? Many thanks.
Hi carolyn
If I have bad diahorea I was told yo eat peanut butter on toast if you are not allergic to nuts or bread it bulks up and that is from a Health Specialist it does work for most I have told but upto you only a suggestion,you might find to much fruit or veg while like that might aggravate if you are in the middle of a flare up .Keep diet bland rice fish chicken soup eggs Iwas told could be fatty,
Wish you well
You can just jump to the L-Glutamine and Probiotics.
Maybe you can try to jump over the Rifaximin, but that will mean that it will take longer for the probioics to kill / control the bad bacteria.
You will have to check if you can manage without Rifaximin, in the worst case, you will have to really take it to wipe out the bad bacteria.
Hi Carolyn have you tried things like actimel yoghurt?
Hi Carolyn
I was just prescribed Prevalite but i'm afraid to try it after reading all the side effects. I'm wondering which is worse. If you do try it could you please comment on this board.
Good Luck
Hi Joan, I think I will first go down the route of trying the L-glutamine and high dose probiotics. However, there are many other good reviews online about Prevalite.
All the best!
I have not tried Actimel specifically but I have tried many other probiotic yoghurts and they dont improve the situation. I think my symptoms require a little bit more than just yoghurt.
Hi Carolyn,
To me (and I may be wrong) IBS is contipation and then diarrhea which is the way the colon cramps violently to rid itself of its contents. Every morning do you go to the bathroom fully? I mean do you empty your entire colon? (according to experts you are supposed to go in the morning...I don't really know why...) I guess you know if you are constipated in between bouts of diarrhea. If you empty your large intestine, there should be nothing left...unless of course, you have serious diarrhea.
Diarrhea is often the body's way of ridding itself of something it considers toxic. I really think that you ought to eliminate ENTIRELY any dairy...even hidden in cookies or cake for example, from your diet. And speaking of desserts, SUGAR causes the runs. So while your gut is in this hyper reactive state, eliminate both sugar and dairy.
If you are taking probiotics which is important, make sure for now that it isn't dairy based. There's soy and rice based.
I would avoid prescription medication unless it is really necessary. 9 times out of 10 it causes more harm than good. I feel certain that you can take care of this with lifestyle management; diet, walks, relaxing, keeping away from stressful situations/people, water, abstaining from ALL dairy and sugar.
The glutamine is natural. I don't have the bottle in front of me but I take what is recommended.
You might want to try Fybogel or Metamucil or psyllium; all the same and also natural; the ground up husks of plantain. It can help with both diarrhea and constipation. Read up on it on line. That might also help. AND...it's natural as I said. You want to go the natural, intuitive, healthy route before resorting to strong chemicals that have their own deleterious side effects. My aim is to never have to take any medication right into old age. So far so good!
For example, I am a bit overweight and have borderline high blood pressure. I lower my salt intake by avoiding commercial soups, crisps etc...(I read food labels and if anything has over 150 mg of salt I don't buy it). I get more exercise (gardening, digging up hostas etc..) and I get fresh air and sun on my skin. I take my supplements, eat probably on average 8 veggies per day (proven cancer protective) and all is well and I want to keep it that way. Good luck, Carolyn!
Hi Carolyn,
Don´t forget at least 10 grams of L-Glutamine Daily ( max is 40 grams daily by Medical advise ), use the powder form which is cheaper if you want to save money. Take this on a empty stomach with water for better effect. I normally take in the morning when I wake up and when I go to bed.
Good Luck, I beleive that everything will go well in 6 month you will quit Amytryptilline after just like I did.
I've just bought a shed load of VSL and l glutamine. I agree with Maurice's advice.
Don't bother with probiotic yoghurts. Waste of time. The sugar outweighs the probiotic in them lol. It's all a scam.
Do a food diary for a while and try to trend what's causing problems. This helped ked a lot as it identified a lot of things wrong with my diet...hence I started to change it and I've improved.
I think ibs a lot of the time is diet and lifestyle. Once the damage has been done it needs to be repaired over a period of time. I tried all the stuff ppl on here suggested and everything made a slight improvement but didn't cure the situation. Also I'd eat certain foods that I thought irritated me then had the same food again and had no problems. The food diary pretty much proved this. Soo bloody frustrating. I'd be happy and really pleased I thought I'd identified the issue... Then my stomach would go bad and I'd be pretty low and frustrated... That cycle kept ongoing for ages.
Hi Ned, I can't stress enough how DIARY can cause issues with human digestion....not baby cow digestion because milk is made specifically for calves that have 4 stomachs to digest such indigestivle milk. If we humans REALLY insist on drinking milk, there should be a market created for human breast milk which would probably be fine in our morning tea. But there is an alternative and that is rice milk or almond milk or even coconut milk. Soymilk is a possibility too but it is genetically modified.
Milk is in a lot of products, especially commercially prepared like canned soups and gravy mixes, sauces, dips, breads, puddings and cakes etc..You need to read labels and ask in restaurants what the sauces or salad dressings are made with. It could be cheese. Even a sprinkling on your pasta can cause problems because cheese is condensed milk. Maybe 1/2 tsp is the equivalent of 1/4 cup of milk. It is probably best to buy and prepare your OWN food with your OWN fresh ingredients.
For me personally, milk (which I drank way too much as a child) in adulthood makes me cough, gives me a runny and blocked nose, in excess gives me asthmatic tight chest etc..As a cheese it gives me headaches. If I were to drink a glass of milk, I would be running to the toilet in a hurry! And I know so many people who have the same issues.
Respectfully to Carolyn, I don't agree that probiotics are a scam. My own probiotics have no sugar in them, are soy based and contain 50 billion beneficial bacteria. I put them in my morning fruit/almond milk/milk-free protein powder smoothie. I have added glutamine as well now, thanks to Maurice's advice. And 20 - 30 mins before meals I down a full glass of water with 1 TBSP of apple cider vinegar thanks to the advice of Barb. My insides sparkle! I hope yours will too.