Back to the Flagyl Again

I've tried it a couple of different ways. 1) 3 - 250mg tablets a week. Normally Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 2) 500mg dose in the evening and another 500mg dose the next morning. I can go without PDU or antibiotics for a week and a few days.

I will start to feel the gassy rumble gut during the workday and figure I'd better take the 500mg dose again that night. I'm trying to stretch out the time when I need to take it but probiotics just don't seem to work long term for me. I've tried over and over again to just take probiotcs (various brands) and 2 weeks is as long as they've ever been effective since about 2 years post-op.

The 3-250mg per week worked for me for a couple of years. I've been up-front with my surgeon about this and he said ok and put it in my file.

When I first tried flagyl, I needed it a long time. I was on it almost constantly for a year, it seemed. After that, I seem to have only needed it 1-2x per year and everything mostly stays under control.

I wonder if you need a longer course and that might help it last longer?

I can't distinguish the symptoms. I think the IBS is exacerbated by bacterial overgrowth, so the symptoms overlap. Flagyl causes the symptoms to abate significantly. And yes, I'm stressed right now (actually, I'm stressed a lot of the time, so that's kind of a pointless excuse). But as I have said many times, if I had known that my IBS would get so much better post-DS, I would have had it for that reason alone.

Lately, the IBS symptoms have been more problematic, and when I take Flagyl, they abate - so it's hard to say whether this is IBS or BOS or both - I actually think it's both, in that the bacterial overgrowth irritates/sets off my hypersensitive guts to give me IBS symptoms.

It's worth a round of Flagyl to see if it helps, I think.

Reporting in:

Started on the flagyl yesterday AM. 500 mg in the AM, 500 at night. This morning, have had a full mug of strong coffee, have been up going on 2 hrs, and can't poop. DISLIKE.

But the stinky gas was gone immediately.

Perhaps the 250mg M, W & F would be better for your system. I don't have a problem with the 2 doses of 500mg. I guess this is more of an art, not a science.

This is subtherapeutic and I do it about once a week. That's also about as long as I last without having issues during the workday as well as at night. Once I start having problems during working hours, I take the 2 500 mg doses. I don't like doing this either and have tried and retried every option I hear about.

I was googling about small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and saw this article www.medicinenet.com/small_intestinal_bacterial_overgrowth/page6.htm that said that "Bifidobacterium infantis 35624 is the only probiotic that has been demonstrated to be effective for treating patients with IBS". I found a corroborating article here: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16863564

It seems that Align is the only product out there containing that particular strain.

I can take 250, once a day for about three days max.

Diana,

You mentioned the abuse of antibiotics increasing the chance of antibiotic resistent gut bacteria, including C. diff. Fifteen years ago I was very ill with Cushings Disease which caused a host of other problems. I had a transphenoidal resection of a pituitary adenoma followed three weeks later by a colon resection. Prior to that I was on and off flagyl for multiple perirectal abcesses/fistulas/fissures. After the resection I was on vancomyacin (sp?) for 6 weeks because of a nasty hospital infection.

After both my lap band removal and gastric bypass, I came down with nasty cases of C Diff. When you mentioned prior antiobiotics, I thought of the high dosages from so many years ago. In your opinion could that have contributed to the recent C Diff? Thanks!

Thank you ma'am!

It seems that Align is the only product out there containing that particular strain.[/quote]

Thanks Kathleen. I need to buy a probiotic and will try that one.

~Becky

I don't think of heartburn as being related to IBS, but I suppose it could be. I have both, but I think of them as being separate issues.

I am on PPIs for the GERD. My stomach issues are pretty much nil when I take them, but symptoms rebound within less than a day if I don't (a couple of times, I have forgotten to refill my prescription in time, and very quickly figured out that was a no-go).

I'd try treating the heartburn with a PPI first and see if that helps.

Becky, what's the sweetener in the fake Crystal Lite? I cannot do any "itols" AT-ALL. Horrible gas and bloating.

Not sure I understand what you mean by this.

HFCS is simply a sugar syrup that has a SLIGHTLY higher concentration of free fructose than a similar syrup made from pure sucrose (which is a disaccharide made up of one molecule of glucose and one molecule of fructose), after hydrolysis to the monosaccharides as a 50:50 mixture. HFCS55, which is used in sweetening sodas, is about approximately 55% fructose and 42% glucose, made by enzymatically converting a bit of the glucose to fructose. Fructose tastes somewhat sweeter than glucose. SO HFCS IS PRACTICALLY THE SAME THING AS CANE SUGAR IN COMPOSITION (except that it is the individual sugars - monosaccharides - while cane sugar is a disaccharide that is quickly broken down in your stomach acid to the monosaccharides, so it is only your tongue that notices the difference).

"High-fructose corn syrup is produced by milling corn to produce corn starch, then processing that starch to yield corn syrup, which is almost entirely glucose, and then adding enzymes that change some of the glucose into fructose. The resulting syrup (after enzyme conversion) contains approximately 42% fructose and is HFCS 42. Some of the 42% fructose is then purified to 90% fructose, HFCS 90. To make HFCS 55, the HFCS 90 is mixed with HFCS 42 in the appropriate ratios to form the desired HFCS 55."

So in fact, HFCS55 is practically the same thing as cane sugar (sucrose). While I believe the HFCS has a very slightly different taste and mouthfeel than sucrose, which is still a disaccharide until it hits our guts and is broken down to 50:50 glucose and fructose, it makes no scientific sense that it is processed in our guts differently after that.

I think there is too much HFCS in our diets, because it is cheap, and artificially supported by corn subsidies and sugar tariffs, but that is a political complaint, not a scientific one; my other complaint is that too many foods - especially foods marketed at kids - are overly sweetened to make them (surprise!) taste better, and the more sweet crap you eat, the more you want. But the reason to complain about HFCS should be parsed into the accurate components - government support for its cheapness, and overuse in overprocessed foods designed to make us want to eat more of it. In the absence of the subsidies and tariffs, the food manufacturers would be using cane sugar to do the same damned thing. It does NOT make scientific sense to demonize HFCS because of its chemical nature as being different from sucrose/cane sugar.

Xylitol is made by hydrogenating xylose, a plant sugar we can't digest. The xylose comes from corn - or HARDWOOD - cellulose is made up of xylose sugars. I don't think (it was not clear) it is made from corn STARCH (which is made of glucose), but probably from the plant cellulose itself.

Sorbitol is made by reduction of glucose (hence it is also sourced from corn starch, but NOT from fructose).

Xylitol has a laxative effect because sugar alcohols are not fully broken down during digestion; albeit one-tenth the strength of sorbitol. Both can cause gas, bloating, cramping and other laxative effects.

And BOTH of them are not zero calorie:

* Xylitol has 2/3 the calories of sugar (One teaspoon (5 g) of xylitol contains 9.6 Kcal, as compared to one teaspoon of sugar, which has 15 Kcal .

* Sorbitol has 2.6 Kcal per gram versus the average 4 Kcal for sugar (not sure why the numbers for sugar are different on the two Wikipedia pages, but for both, the Kcal are about 2/3 of sugar, NOT ZERO)

For me, the reduction in calories is SO not worth the trade off for the laxative effect.