# Immodium - doesn't seem to work



## jackied (Mar 17, 2011)

Hi, my 14 year old son was just diagnosed, after being ill for a couple of months. He started taking Immodium on Wednesday, but it seems to have had no effect at all. He was prescribed to be taking one capsule in the morning and then another at lunchtime (in order to try to get him back into school), but I've upped the dose to two capsules, again with no effect. Just wanted some tips as to whether I should try different timings, or what? Or are we just being too impatient, and it will help given time? I don't want to increase the dose too much over what the doctor said (he weighs 8 1/2 stone, by the way.)He's not eating any solids at all at the moment, and we think that both dairy and soy milk make him worse - trying soy has coincided with worse diarrhea and worse stomach cramps than on the dairy. He's really rough this morning, though he hasn't had any dairy or soy since yesterday lunchtime.


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## overitnow (Nov 25, 2001)

I have no answer to your Immodium question; but I would suggest trying Rice Dream. Soy has become reactive for me, after years of using it when I needed to lower my milk intake. I tried a rice drink and find it much more like milk than soy. It tastes good, and so far hasn't contributed to any skin or bowel problems.Mark


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

I think the imodium would have had SOME effect by now. (Have you reported this to the Dr?) Has his stool been tested yet? (For like C-Diff or any other problems) By the way I wouldn't have him ingest _any_ dairy at all right now. Not til this calms down a bit.


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## rasputin (Feb 12, 2011)

Immodium should work very quickly. What was the diagnosis?The diet that really helped me was salad, rice, and chicken breast. not spectacular, but it had me feeling better in a day or two. then i slowly and carefully added variety, noting when foods caused problems.


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## jackied (Mar 17, 2011)

Thanks for the replies. The diagnosis was post infection IBD, and he has had a stool test.


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

IBD or IBS?


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## crstar (Jun 29, 2009)

i know someone who imodium doesn't work at all & actually makes her sick..........imodium is suppose to slow or stop the intestinal contractions in the intestines...........it's possible that this may not b ur son's problem...........it could b something else...........excess histamine & gastrin can cause D, big time...........it's possible that he is not making enough hydrochloric acid (HCl) in his stomach, which causes the histamine & gastrin to keep being produced..............there r things u might want to try..........google stomach acid & HCl secretion..........also how to test for enough HCl in the stomach....it's done with betaine hydrochloride..............if u can't find what u need, email or send a message to me...........there is also a thing where not enough tryptophan & or 5HTP being converted in the intestines causing D, also.........if the protein he is consuming, is not being completely digested, then there isn't enough of those amino acids for the conversion to serotonin...........there r alot of things involved with complete digestion....high protein & cheese can b constipating, or with a person who suffers with D, can make things more normal.............cmt..........


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## jackied (Mar 17, 2011)

Sorry, I meant IBS, I am still finding the terminology confusing. He's had really bad constipation for several weeks before the two weeks of diarhea so I don't know whether to call it IBS-D or not. I'll stick with giving him regular Immodium over the weekend and get some rice milk, and see if there's any improvement.He had a two week trial of Lanzoprazole to see if he had GERD and he wasn't as bad as he is right now, so my guess is that implies that stomach acid isn't an issue here.Although his diet is very unbalanced at the moment one of the few things I am managing to get down him is home made chicken soup (mostly chicken), which should be relatively good for tryptophan. For the last couple of weeks he's been having a complete nutritional drink supplement - I shall check the pack and see if that contains much tryptophan.Thanks


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## jackied (Mar 17, 2011)

He now has blood in the diarrhea as well so I called the Dr, who says NO more imodium! He now has to take mebeverine and is being booked in for a colonscopy. So we'll see what that shows up.


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

Yeah.. that's better.. Glad you spoke to the Dr. It just didn't sound right that the imodium was not having an impact. So let's see how he does with the colonoscopy. If he is having severe diarrhea anyway.. ask the Dr for a gentler Prep maybe??


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## tomtom28 (Mar 18, 2011)

Try imodium instants he might be allergic to the capsule casing


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## jmc09 (Oct 5, 2009)

Could be IBD but the colonoscopy will show that if thats the case.Imodium stopped working for me about 6 months ago and now im on codeine phosphate again.Same thing happened to me about 17 years ago and it turned out to be IBD.


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