Hi.. this is crazy but the past 2 days I have passed a pill through my stoma. This is a new medication I am taking, a substitute for Levbid. I take it once/day and just started about 5 days ago. Has this ever happened to anyone? Should I be concerned? The only thing that seems to dissolve is the color - it seems rather love to not dissolve further. I am worried it may cause an obstruction?

I doubt anything that small would cause an obstruction. I remember fishing several apparently completely undissolved oxycontin pills at once out of my son's output (so I could show the doctor). Sometimes what appears to be an intact pill is only the "matrix", out of which the medication actually has in fact been absorbed. Not sure whether or not your medication would fall into that category--you'd have to ask the doctor.

I don`t pass pills through the stoma(haven`t had one for 5 years now)butt I do pass my Oxycontin pills constantly through my butt.They are completely whole and my doctor told me when I asked that what I see in the toilet is the shell of the pill the medicine has already passed through my system by then.I know its weird though seeing the pill in the toilet.

Hey,
Yup I have passed pills through my stoma. I took and allegra for allergies and saw it come thru 40 minutes later. Most of the letters of allegra had washed off, but the pill was in good shape. I also passed a few nexiums (heart burn capsule) through undigested.

My advice is to eat a few tablespoons of apple sauce. Wait about 10 minutes. Then for solid pills break them into smaller pieces (increase the surface area for them to get broken down in your stomach and digested in your intestines) For capsules, try snipping open or cracking open the capsule partially to better allow the intestinal juices to get to the medicine inside.

The other option, is to see if your medication is available in a liquid form. I always started off my meals with a few spoonfuls of applesauce to help slow down my system (it acted like a slow moving plug)

-Justin

My husband did that. Your digestive system has changed. Some medications may not be suitable and effective for you now since everything you take in is now processed differently. I wish for you and other ostomy and J-pouch people that someone would make a list of meds that are not useable and that need to be changed after surgery. This list could help a lot of people.

The reason why you passed the pill was b/c your large intestine is where the pill will release and absorb through out your body to the areas the medication needs to go. So basically there really isnt anyway to take it. Even if you break it down to take it, its pointless b.c its not absorbing in the large intestine where it should, your small intestine yes functions as b oth but cant perform all of the work the large intestine did. So when being on meds you need to ask the doctor if this will release in your small intestine since you no longer have a large intestine or call your GI doctor before taking.

Ashley

In regards to Apals post.If it were true that the small intestine wasn`t absorbing the medication properly like the large intestine was doing then I would be in horrid pain all the time,which I`m not, and I would be also having withdrawl sypmtoms,which I don`t.So the lack of pain and withdrawl symptoms only tells me that my small intestine is doing its job just fine. I`m on Oxycontin BTW.

This happened to Lesrich with her k pouch, see the old posts there by using the find tool.
Copperhead is correct.
I have taken many pills over the 20 years with my j pouch and never had any issues. My son has a k pouch and he does not have any issues with pills either.
The best thing to do is Drink hot green tea to help break the pill up.This is true with folks with colons as well, meds dissolve faster with hot tea but in our case green tea is proven to break things up faster. Not sure why.