Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Re: Anti-depressants just for treating D

I don't think that anti-depressants only help IBS by lifting anxiety and/or depression so the psychological component is eased. If I understand correctly, anti-depressants help IBS directly by acting on the serotonin levels that are a major player in the gut's own nervous system. The usual claim is that the dosage of anti-depressants given for IBS is far lower than the dosage of anti-depressants needed to treat depression.

Nonetheless, even at the relatively low dose given for IBS, anti-depressants do also seem to impact the serotonin that is a major player in the brain's nervous system. Like you, I found this worrisome, but my IBS was so disruptive that I was willing to try almost anything to get it under control. Elavil worked for me, but I had to keep increasing the dosage to keep it working and the side-effects finally got to be too much for me. Paxil (an SSRI) did nothing for me at a low dose and an attempt to increase the dosage had me literally walking into walls.

However, if my IBS-D had not yielded to Heather's approach, I had made up my mind to work my way through whatever list of drugs my GI guy wanted to try. He told me there were other SSRIs we could try, but he also suggested Lotronex as a possibility and I was seriously considering it. I know Lotronex can be dangerous, but I thought it might be preferable to the anti-depressants. Like you, I'm not crazy about drugs that mess with my mind. I had not done extensive research on Lotronex before I found this Website, but in what I had read I had not run across discussions of mental or emotional side-effects.

According to my GI (caution: this guy never met a prescription pad he didn't like), Lotronex is safe if you are appropriately alert for warning signs of trouble. It doesn't work for everyone, but for some people it seems to have been a miracle. Only some doctors can prescribe it and I would want to be absolutely certain my prescribing doctor took the possibility of side-effects as seriously as I did.

Having said all this, though, I firmly believe that if you don't want to take anti-depressants or anti-anxiety drugs - or Lotronex - to help with your IBS-D, you shouldn't let anyone talk you into doing so. Only you can determine if your symptoms are so disruptive that you're willing to undergo whatever risks and/or side-effects you'll experience from drugs. And if you like your mind just the way it is, finding it altered can be quite upsetting. (Are you by any chance a computer programmer?)

Have you considered accupuncture? I had good results from it for quite a while. It eventually stopped working when I (apparently) contracted some type of food poisoning, but if you really want to avoid drugs I'd definitely say give it a try. Make sure your accupuncturist is willing to discuss how long it will take before you see results, how long you will need to seen frequently, and what type of long-term maintenance will be required.

I hope this helps.

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