if you have pouchitis, is it bad to take bowel slowers (immodium/lomotil)?

The antibiotics thicken the stool up and if you take too many imodium or other bowel slowers you run the risk of getting constipated or partially constipated and having trouble evacuating stool which will most definitely exacerbate pouchitis.

I take Tincture of Opium because Lomotil or Immodium constipate me. If I didn't take something to slow me down when pouchitis hits, I'd be literally living on the toilet!

Basically, you want to use bowel slowers as needed. If you are only going 3-4 times a day, I would definitely not take them. If you are going 10 times a day, I don't think you need to worry about them slowing your bowels down where it's going to exacerbate the pouchitis. Personally, I only take one Imodium at night so I can get a full night's sleep. During the day, since I have easy access to the bathroom, I don't take anything other than the antibiotic.

clz81, do you take antibiotic everyday whether you have pouchitis or not. I only take it when I have pouchitis and as soon as it knocks it out I stop until the next bout of pouchitis and then I do it again. I've always heard that if you take antibiotic too much it will not work and you will be immune to it when you really need for something real serious.

For me, one of the ways I know it is pouchitis (or a cuffitis flare) is that bowel slowers don't work. At least not to any major extent. But, yeah, it is safe. But, I let up on the dose once I take antibiotics until I know how thick my stool will get with them.

Jan

Jeremy, I take rotate antibiotics with pepto bismol every few weeks to give me a break from the antibiotics. I have chronic pouchitis so I couldn't go more than a couple days not on something. But yes, they can lose effectivess with extended use and in my case they have for sure. Cipro and Augmentin don't work for me anymore, which is horrible since they used to work amazingly well. I'm rotating xifaxan and pepto right now.