Feel like you can't leave home because of fecal incontinence? Many older people have urinary incontinence, but bowel leakage has a huge impact on the quality of your life. It's embarrassing to talk about anal leakage with your family, friends and even your doctor. Thanks to new data there is a great new old first-line treatment that is even better than a pharmaceutical drug. Here's the new scoop on poop. Fecal incontinence treatments included: dietary changes, fiber supplementation, pelvic floor and rectal muscle exercises and biofeedback and medications that improved stool consistency. Loperamide was prescribed, but there was one problem with it - it caused constipation. Patients with bowel leakage not only have bowel leakage; they usually have diarrhea and constipation. Nice combo.
I do a full work-up to find the source of this vexing combination problem and generally I find food allergies, gut dysbiosis, celiac genomics and other functional issues. Most patients end up removing dairy, gluten, grains, sugar and alcohol. They get faster and better results when they follow our 21 day GOOD GUT program.
Back to the scoop on poop
There was no comparative research in the field between loperamide and fiber. A trial was set-up from the Fiber or Imodium Prescription Management for Bowel Incontinence (FIRM) trial. FIRM is not a pun. In this study patients were randomized to receive either loperamide or psyllium fiber for 4 weeks with a 2 week washout period and then crossed-over to the opposite treatment for 4 weeks.
What were the results?
After 4 weeks, participants in both groups had significant improvements with weekly episodes decreasing with loperamide from 7.9 to 4.1 and psyllium fiber from 7.3 to 4.8. The biggest difference showed up with adverse effects in the loperamide group. 20-24% experienced gas, headache was more common with loperamide, constipation and abdominal pain were much more common with loperamide than psyllium.
.jpg?width=173&name=th_(44).jpg "There is hope for fecal incontinence with natural treatments")
Tolerability with loperamide was an issue because this drug has an affect on the central nervous system that could be slight in younger people and problematic in the elderly.
If you have fecal incontinence the first step is to begin talking about your condition and we are here to listen. We have a full pharmacy of natural medicines that can be individualized for your condition. This condition falls into the medical realm so schedule an in-person appointment. Don't wait to get to the end of your roll of paper and hope. We can help you now.
