I had been taking Endep (amitripyline hydrochloride 10mg) which is an antidepressant for possible IBS. No adverse reactions but I did not feel it did anything for me. So I stopped. At least 48 hours later I went out to dinner. I had red wine. Some time into the dinner I had to excuse myself. I started getting the worst knots in my stomach and got very nauseous. I vomited several times. I though I was going to die.

I did not drink that much (I have drunk much more in the past without a problem). I had to go to hospital in an ambulance. They gave me an injection of Buscopan (muscle relaxant). Within half an hour I was OK. Has anyone any idea what happened?

I had an apple before I started drinking and having dinner. I have noticed discomfort in the stomach before when I have had grapes and then wine but nothing ever like this. Any suggestions anyone. Regards.

You may have a food intollerance to something you ate or a combination of foods. These are called trigger foods. The only way that I have found to find out what they are is to keep a log of everything that you eat and drink for sometime. There are Doctors that work with you and this problem. If you have a reaction you take a 1/4 teaspoon of Calcium BiCarbonate powder in 6 ounces of water to get over the reaction.

Some doctors think everyone that has IBS is allergic or intollerant to one or more foods--- Dr. Julian Whitaker ,MD in his book says that also---???

The reaction could be caused by ptomaine poisoning??? Have you considered this?
Hazel

I have to say that I think the reaction was due to drinking alchol and the alcohol mixing with the amytriptylline. I know you said that you stopped taking it, but unfortunately, not all drugs get washed out of your system that quickly. It will have built up in your system for the amount of time that you have been taking it and could still be there, so I am afraid that amytriptylline and alcohol are not a good mix.

Amytriptylline are vicious drugs anyway.

Thanks Sarah and H. I had to be rescued from the toilet which was very embarassing. I was convulsing badly. I have stopped the antidepressants altogether. Never believed in drugs too much.

I suppose it's better to drink than to take a DRUG that helps regulate the faulty neurotransmitters that are contributing to the Irritable Bowel in the first place.
Makes sense to me. http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif


[This message has been edited by kat721 (edited 04-14-2003).]

P.S.
I vote for the food and beverage intolerance.

Where's that masked acupuncturist when you need him?
If only there were needles to go and a practitioner on hand when you are having a darn life crisis.

I have no clue as to why life is not more efficient.
Darn those IBS attacks.

You should never take drugs with alcohol, especially benzodiazapines (amytrip. is in this family). You don't know what will happen.

I'd say to give it at least 7-10 days. You may think that this is pretty long but it's better to be on the safe side.

Thanks guys. I am seeing a doctor to be on the safe side. No drugs for me meantime. What does kat mean by the following?

"I suppose it's better to drink than to take a DRUG that helps regulate the faulty neurotransmitters that are contributing to the Irritable Bowel in the first place."

Kat means that it seems a little backwards to get off the DRUG that was probably prescribed to help with the neurotransmitors that play an important role in the digestive process and not take into consideration the flaw of alcohol consumption while taking medication along with the Irritable condition of Irritable Bowels.

That kind of logic makes absolutely no sense to me.

I would think it might be better to fully understand the true nature of the DRUG and the role neurotransmiters play in the whole IBS reality before jumping on the anti drug band wagon.

If you are going to drink don't mix it with medicnes or recreational drugs.
That includes the neurotransmitter variety.
If you have IBS, you may soon learn that alcoholic beverages are NOT on the list of suggested nutrition.

What's the use in not taking a DRUG!!! if one is going to drink on an Irritable gut.
Seems like a whole defeat of nutritional and natural health.

Better the drug.
At least it plays a real role in your intestinal healing.
kat

P.S. Amitryptiline is a Tricyclic Antidepressant.
It works with Neurotransmitters in the brain.
It is not the ever feared Benzodiazapine and it is not a viscious drug.
It's not even a heavily regulated medication.
It does however cause constipation in the higher doses.
But it is extremely effective in the control of Neuropathic PAIN when taken in the lowest dose.
It is one of the big medications used for people with Diabetic Neuropathy.
The above assessment of the Amitryptiline(Elavil)
classification of medications was probably a bit confused with the generic name of Xanax which is a Benzodiazapine.
Amitryptine is a totally different story.
Please learn all you can about the medications you are given.

[This message has been edited by kat721 (edited 04-16-2003).]

P.S.
Post>>I did not drink that much (I have drunk much more in the past without a problem). I had to go to hospital in an ambulance. They gave me an injection of Buscopan (muscle relaxant). <<

First, back when you drank more with out a problem you probably were not on the throwes of Irritable Bowels
or what ever is the physical matter of your health at this time.
If a muscle relaxant worked and you were then fine it sounds like you were having a spasm.
Otherwise, if it were poisoning they would have given you Prednisone and/or Benedryl and/or Phenergan injections. Either separately or all together.
So, since the ER treated you for spasms it's probably a fair guess that maybe you were having spasms which do indeed cause endless vomiting and loss of bowel and bladder control which in their worst can resemble a convulsion but if the vitals did not register for a convulsion then the choice of a muscle relaxant makes sense.
That's my guess.
Amitryptiline also has sedative properties.
At 10 mg it might not make you feel anything.
It's not supposed to. It would however possibly cause for your muscles to be more relaxed thereby avoiding the horrid spastic muscle clamp of death.
So, you stop taking the medication as prescribed and poof you have the killer spasm from beyond.
Coinsidence or cause? Who knows.
There is the off chance that the medication does not agree with your system but since you did not have any problems with the medication early on you would probably not have a sudden reaction to the medication itself since you couldn't feel it.
But that's just guessing too.
Only your Doctor will be able to shed some light on the whole pharmeceutical reality for your particular body.
There are also other medications used specifically for the event of bladder bowel and vagus nerve spasms which are organ specific and are used for Irritable Bowel syndrome, and Irritable bowel disease along with other spastic conditions in the body but which do address the specific organs.
There are many many of those medications and those are taken either once or three times a day 30 minuites before meals just depending on the severity of the problem.
Medications for complex health conditions are not a bad thing. I dunno about you but for me it beats the heck out of marathon vomiting.
If one has never known the unhappy intimacy of the toilet and it's secrets then one can not speak against the DRUGS that save us from such a wretched reality.
kat


[This message has been edited by kat721 (edited 04-16-2003).]

Kat, I take your point about drugs. However, I have had my condition of IBS (if that is what it is) for years and years. Drinking has never given me a problem in terms of the IBS (only a hangover when I overdo it which is very infrequent). As for the drug, I feel no worse not taking it now for a week or more. Instead, I am looking at other things to manage my condition like diet control and liefstyle change. Mind you that includes even less alcohol than before which, like I said, was very infrequent (maybe once a month if that). I tried for a while having a glass of wine when I got home from work - that seemed to help somewhat but my condition was not perfect as it is not perfect now. The wine seemed to relax me. But what happened the other day was unreal. I thought I was going to die at one stage. I called for my wife who was panic stricken to see me in such pain. Regards.

Sam, I can assure you that many of us who have gone to the ER with Gastrointestinal problems have thought we were going to die. It's a terrible feeling.
And some, like my self, might have died if Emergency Surgery were not something that fit in with luck and good timing.
Irritable Bowels can and do become life threatening.
So I am sure both you and your wife were in for a very difficult and scary reality when you had your crisis.
It goes with out saying that having to be rescued from the public restroom certainly was a big traumatic deal.
No one gets rescued from the public restroom unless it's a considerable matter.
And because you did have such a scary brush with the real possibility of the dreadful reality, then I would imagine that finding the right answers for your problem have now become of more immediate importance.
As with most people with Irritable Bowels, the condition is often changable in it's nature.
Finding ones right and consistent maintenance answers depends on how flexable you can be with rethinking old patterns and concepts. With IBS anything, what held true for yesterday might be totally wrong for tomorrow. Managing the chronically irritable gut might even sometimes involve a little creativity and finding the doctor or doctors who will be able to see your body for what it's doing and figure out the current pattern of need until the "next" time.
I often think that by the time the Irritable gut gets to the stage that it's sending us to the hospital thinking we are on deaths door, that the condition has probably been going on for a while.
Maybe even years. Who really knows.
As with most chronic disorders, they do take some time to build. At some point what may appear as a sudden onset of crisis, may actually be tracable to other trigger events.
It's a big long journey of self learning and discovery.
kat

Kat,
You're right, I forgot - amitryp. is a tricyc. antidepress. Drugs that work/interfere with your central nervous system (CNS), such as the above class, benzos, pain killers (e.g. Vicodin, Darvocet), muscle relaxers (Flexiril (sp)) will cause constipation - some more than others and at different strengths. If it relaxes/slows your system down this normally includes your GI tract - from what I've seen so far.


[This message has been edited by giupset (edited 04-17-2003).]

Post>>If it relaxes/slows your system down this normally includes your GI tract - from what I've seen so far.<<

What you are refering to is commonly called the
Brain-Gut Axis. This is a technical term used in IBS research and treatment.
This covers the function of the central nervous system (brain and spine) and the functional factors that impact the intestines via the enteric nervous system.

Remember, the Central Nervous sustem consists of the brain and the spine. Specifically.

Fact>There are more nerve receptors in the gut than the Brain.
Fact>The same neuro transmittors that work in the brain are also found in the gut.
Fact> the gut is often called the second brain in a lot of well accepted IBS research.
Fact>when the smooth muscle of the intestine contracts it is called motility.
Fact>when the contents of the gut are propelled through the gut it is called Peristalis.
Fact>the smooth muscle surrounding the intestines is controlled by the enteric nervous system.
Fact>This is then connected to the central nervous system by the autonomic nervous system.


So, in finding the answer to the plethroia of problems that an Irritable Gut can cause it's important to understand gut function as well as brain function because the two are inseperable due to the reality of the brain gut axis.
The Enteric Nervous System is a web of
neurotransmitters and neuromodulators.
The nerve cells in the bowel are numbered in the millions.
The Autonomic Nervous System is the involuntary nervous
system that regulates function in the skin,smooth muscles, eyes, bladder, heart, stomach and intestines.
The Autonomic Nervous System has three distinct parts: the sympathetic, the parasympathetic, and the enteric
nervous system.
The actual complexity of the whole function is huge.
There being the reason for a lot of confusion and lack of answers for one specific remedy.
However, by virtue of the huge numbers of people afflicted with the problems, the current research tends to go with the numbers which consistently prove efficacy of treatment to the largest number of people with the problems.
It would be to the health advantage of anyone suffering from Irritable Bowel anything to understand the role of neurotransmittors and nervous system function when attempting to find their own personal remedy for the problem.
Also, understanding the core of motility and peristolis would be the other important consideration.
Is motility affected by genetics? Is it impaired due to the faulty relay of nerves to the gastrointestinal tract? Is it a problem of muscle movement? Or, is it the ever fascinating reason of unknown cause?
Find those answers and you are on your way to knowing the correct answers.
When it comes down to the chronic problem the answers fluctuate between treating the core, which it is agreed, is often beyond any ones current ability to pinpoint. Or going with the uses of profolactic treatments in hopes that the body might eventually right itself. The conditions seem to fluctuate between activity and remission.
As with many chronic disturbences the condition once activated in the body is rarely seen as cured but as in remission.
I just saw a new Gastroenterologist yesterday.
He had some interesting thought on the condition of my pukey irritable bowel.
His thought was to treat it like a migraine with profolactic care and a bunch of medication to knock out the trigger long enough to facillitate normal regulation of the body.
Sounds like a plan to me.
Basically the goal is to stay out of gut crisis because repeated gut crisis only leads to the complication of the problem.
So we now have a supply of specific medications when the warning signs first arrive.
Interesting enough the whole Bowel trauma process does seem to follow a Migraine like pattern in that the warning rumble or edgy feeling might precipitate an event by a specified time period.
(that's how it is turning out to work for me)
So the key lies in recognizing the symptoms and knowing what works and doing the drill.
Yes, it involves a lot of medication.
For those who want to tough it out and find more holistic treatments it would not be the way to go.
But honestly, I have lived my life with a Holistic
approach. I AM a Holistic practitioner!!!!!
And truthfully, I am just not there anymore for anymore toilet trauma while trying to figure out the most pure and natural approach to what is obviously an abnormal condition that is so far beyond balance that it now requires extreme methods to normalize the wide fluctuations.
Since I have an abnormal triggering factor, Endometriosis and adhesions in my pelvis, I have located at least one of my triggers. So in that respect we are a bit further ahead in the process of figuring out remedy.
For many many other people the foundations are not so clear. The organic possibilities alone are endless and subject to the good luck of finding a excellant diagnostician.
I've gone through more than 13 doctors in a years time.
And it has been worth every frustrating event and every penny I have complained about because today I at very least feel emotionally comforted in knowing that my handly dandy profolactic medications will help to rescue me from an impromtu toilet trama as I attempt to live a somewhat normal life.
And THAT is a huge and wonderful accomplishment.
kat

P.S. The Benzodiazapine Xanax does not cause constipation. Xanax has unique antispasmodic properties that make it a companion medication of choice in a lot of chronic spastic situations. Xanax has been SPECIFICALLY suggested for some of my conditions while in the investigations stage to keep my body out of hospital crisis while the Doctors are trying to figure out possible causes.
The Cardiologist prescribed it to help keep my pulses under control until they pinpointed the need for a specific beta blocker and dose.
The Urologist prescribed it until they figured out that my bladder is ultra small and prone to spasms.
The Gastroenterologist prescribed it to keep my gut out of spasms that were tight enough to produce simultanious vomiting urination and bowel movent.
yes, that was wonderfully delightful.
The Family Practitioner prescribed it for insomnia when my hormones were crazy from having a load of endometriosis and a sick ovary removed from my body.
The Enodcrinologist prescribed it when on the road to fixing the hormonal problem.
Xanax, although often prescribed for anxiety, also has other important medical uses and contimues to be the medication of choice for certain organic problems.
And constipating it is not.
It actually relaxes the gut eenough to help facillitate a full bowel movement there by relieving internal pressure on th heart and other organs.
And there is a huge difference between a suitable function bowel movement and a full bowel movement.
The suitable function bowel movement keeps you out of the ER. The full bowel movement gives you a new lease on life.
kat

[This message has been edited by kat721 (edited 04-17-2003).]

Do you mind telling me what your profession is Kat???

Update - I am not taking any chances and going to see a gastroenterologist. I expect nothing conclusive as before but at least I am trying to get to the bottom of it all. Nothing like feeling helpless. Doing something tends to take that feeling of helplessnes away.

Kat

A lot of what you have written I had known either from my own research or intuitively. Doctors don't give much away in terms of advice. I sometimes feel that IBS is one of those illnesses that we have created for ourselves in modern society and if we could give up everything and live in a healthy natural environment for 6 months, the symptoms would go away if the problem it self did not get cured. Do you know of any desert islands where the accommodation is not too expensive and there is a toilet handy around the corner?

Regards

Post>>Do you mind telling me what your profession is Kat???<<

Sherrie, It really does not matter what my profession might be.
(although that information has already been mentioned in posts further up)
The energy I put forth here is as a regular person, much like anyone here, who has taken their personal journey of ill health and decided to do something better with the situation. I learn all I can to help myself understand the basics of any of my many body contitions. For me, that learning has not only been my strength in helping me to clarify the body processes, but it has also uncovered a huge amount of valuable information that helped me discover the right direction for the betterment of my health.
More important than a profession, is the fact of living in a body with multiple chronic illness.
So for the insight you might be looking for, I'd have to say that in my case experience has been an enormously important teacher.
Illness comes along for many reasons.
I personally think that sometimes illness is a transformational state of existence. It is without a doubt that we pass though some pretty heavy duty
challenges that require us to pull from our own core of emotional and physical reserves.
So being, researching and studying the processes that clamp down on our bodies and cause a huge shift in the old plan of progress,seems to be the most sensible action taken, given the status of the hand we have been dealt in life.
After all, isn't that what these message boards are about? Learning and sharing information we have gathered on the cosmic scavenger hunt towards health.
kat

Post>> I sometimes feel that IBS is one of those illnesses that we have created for ourselves in modern society and if we could give up everything and live in a healthy natural environment for 6 months, the symptoms would go away if the problem it self did not get cured<<

Well, Sam, a lot of people feel the same way as you feel.
However, that's not a reality I desire to own.
I totally do NOT think that we created the malady of our distress with faulty programming of the mind.
That's too nevgative compounding negative.
What happens then, if people buy into that sort of thinking, is that it creates a whole guilt thing for the person/people who might be struggling and doing their best with wonderfully positive thoughts, and yet, still, they wind up falling short of robust health.
No, for my view of life and the role of illness in our bodies and our life, I choose to see illness as a transformational journey in which we learn and grow.
I've had friends who have done the exact thing you mention about taking off 6 months to retreat from the whole social rat race. Some have gone to live in Ashrams for several months or more.
And still, there was no total remission or cure to their malady.
They did however learn some wonderful coping skills and they did manage to better the situation of their malady to make it more livable. They grew as individuals and they often times adopted a whole new view of life for the positive. But cure? That was not somthing I ever noticed as being the general outcome.
So basically with any chronic illness it's my personal belief that we most definately can influence more betterment with adjustments to our thinking.
But if one falls short of robust health, there should not be the healing stigma of being ill because of ill thought or unresolved past lives.
Sometimes, we have the hand we are dealt and then we do our best.
And that is about all anyone can expect of them selves.
Best of Luck on your journey of self and health discovery.
I'm really glad you are going to the Doctor.
Hang in there
kat

Well Kat, for someone who claims to be a holistic practitioner, I just have to laugh at that. The amount of holistic advice you try to give seems to me to be negligable and you do seem to slag others off for trying to help others by recommending the alternatives such as acupuncture and homeopathy.

Just because acupuncture and homeopathy do not work for you, do not try and put people off them. If they don't work for you, there are others out there for whom they do work, so why not just keep quiet and let others try them out rather than making veiled accusations against them all the time.

Posted>>so why not just keep quiet and let others try them out rather than making veiled accusations against them all the time.<<

Dear Sarah, This is a public forum.
Why not keep quiet?
For the same reason you are allowed to speak.

The world is full of choices.

you posted>>for someone who claims to be a holistic practitioner, I just have to laugh at that.<<

That's Okay. Go ahead and laugh and make fun.
Obviously, that somehow makes you feel better.
And if that's what you need to feel better then fine.

Being a Holistic Practitioner does not mean that one trades in their sense of individuality and personal
view point to run with the herd and participate in blind acceptance.
It also does not make us perfect and beyond human frailty.

Maybe, I just march to a beat of a different drummer.
Maybe I have learned things that are different.

I happen to believe that the medical process needs to be carefully balanced with the effort to facillitate wholeness of body mind and spirit.
If that means taking medicine, the right medicines, for the physical problems, then great.
Medicine can be used holistically and therapuedically as we are exploring complimentary therapies and finding the way to balance a foot in both worlds.

In the end analysis it basically comes down to using which ever modality does the best job at helping us to achieve a better quality of life.
It comes down to the modality that helps us be better people who treat eachother with simple goodness and respect.
Which ever modality accomplishes those things is the modality I tend to choose.

It is my view point that the real role of Holistic practice is something that should be of complimentary
assistence to the process of western medicine.
There are a lot of very very sick people in the world.
It's beyond the capacity of any one system to answer all needs to all people.

Diversity and the freedom to explore many many ideas
is the foundation of finding the miraculous events that pool together to create the betterment of our healing.

I know that I for one, owe my life to prudent Doctors and Medical care.
I have used Holistic practices and still abide by a lot of the vast amount of information and practices I have been fortunate enough to gather over the years.
However, I have also been in life threatening crisises. It is also important to know that correct timing and balance are required to have the clear judgement to embrace the standard western medical approach or the purist ideal of the Holistic reality.

So in short, it simply is the wise person who knows proper timing and proper use of proper modality.
It really is all about choices.


Wishing you both Wisdom and Health,
kat