# St John's Wort



## idkwia (Feb 26, 2009)

I have been prescribed Citalopram but I am reluctant to start it. I have posted a thread about the side effects of this and have had some good replies. However, before I take the plunge I am wondering if St John's Wort is effective in treating IBS. Now before I go any further let me say that I am fully aware that anti-depressants are used in low doses for IBS and they are not used here for depression, they are used because one of their effects is often an improvement in IBS although the resaons for this happening are not clear. So I am asking if a side effect of St John's Wort is to improve IBS as the other anti-depressants do? I should say that I am not in the slightest bit depressed and I do not feel anxious, I am just trying to improve my horrible IBS-C.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

As far as I know there is no clinical data that I could use to compare St. John's Wort with antidepressants, and certainly no head to head tests.There have been some people who have tried it, you might use the search button to see their stories, but if I remember correctly the results are pretty mixed and my impression was probably less effective rather than as or more.http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/69385.cfm has all the side effects noted in the clinical trials that have been done with it and if anything it seems to be more on the tends to constipate people then tends to loosen stools. With IBS-C usually people do better with the antidepressants that tend to loosen up the stools.The MSKCC.org site is a good one for checking out herbs as they do list the side effects and drug interaction that a lot of sites tend to ignore. They do tend to focus on herbs that cancer patients tend to use, but they do have a pretty good number of herbs reviewed.


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