Colestid - Digestive Disorders Message Board

purple2067 · 02-24-2004, 10:31 PM

I have been taking Colestid 120s 100mg since about a month after my gallbladder surgery in May 2003. It has been working wonderfully. I no longer have to run to the bathroom 20 times a day. But over the last few weeks, about 5 or 10 minutes after eating breakfast I have to RUN to the bathroom and I have bad diahrrea. The usual dosage is 2-4 pills. I take 3. I take the Colestid usually about 5 minutes before I eat in the morning. Is that enough time?

What is going on with me?

Thanks,
Elyse

Katie G · 02-27-2004, 01:38 PM

Hey Elyse so glad the Colestid seems to be working for you. I've never heard of Colestid 120s - each one of my pills is 1 gram and I take 2 every a.m. I found out the hard way that I must take them at least 20-30 minutes before I'm going to eat anything or I'm the same way as you are. I'm ok with a cup of coffee in the a.m. before I take them (usually!), but I found out that if I don't allow at least 20 mintues for them to be in my stomach, I will be running to the bathroom after I eat.

Continued success to you!

Katie G

purple2067 · 02-27-2004, 07:25 PM

Thank you Katie.

I hope you are well too.

The Colestid has really worked wonders for me. I CAN EAT AGAIN! But nothing is perfect. Some mornings I still have a problem.

My prescription bottle says "Colestid 1 gram tablets 120's" I haven't got a clue what the 120 means.

They are huge, oblong, yellow tablets and one side has the letter "U" on it. Is that what yours look like?

Anyway, I have realized that as long as I don't eat a big breakfast I am OK. When I go to work, I usually just grab a Milk N' Cereal bar (cinnamon toast crunch, cocoa puffs, etc....) and a cup of tea in a travel mug on my way out the door. But since I am a substitute teacher there are days when I don't work. So I take that opportunity to have a better breakfast. I'll have waffles or pancakes (frozen ones) or a bagel or occasionally some eggs. I don't usually have a problem when I take the Colestid and eat the cereal bar 5 minutes later. But when I have a normal breakfast, I better be near a toilet. It usually only happens once in the morning and then I am fine to eat for the rest of the day. So I am thinking that you are right, it must have something to do with the amount of time I am giving myself between taking the pills and eating.

It's such a pain though because they tell you that if you have to take any other medicine, it has to be taken either 1 hour before, or 4 hours after taking the Colestid. Otherwise the Colestid will absorb the medicine. Normally I take all of my other medicines at bedtime. But now I have a new medicine that I take for my fatigue (from my Multiple Sclerosis that was diagnosed in december) and that needs to be taken in the morning too. So my dilemma is that I need to take that 1 hour before I take my Colestid. So I get up, take my fatigue medicine and wait an hour. By that time I'm starving. So I take the Colestid and eat. Or on a morning when I am really in a rush (like if I oversleep) I take the Colestid first and then wait 4 hours to take the other medicine. But that's not goot because then I'm falling asleep for the first 4 hours of my day. Does anybody else have this sort of dilemma?

Do you think it is a good idea to take 3 Colestid on the mornings when I am only eating the cereal bar, and take 4 on the mornings when I am going to have a bigger breakfast?

Also, I find that if I wake up late (I'm so tired that on my days off I sleep until 12!) I don't have as much of a problem with the diahrrea. All through my life I have always found that no matter what I eat, if I eat really early in the morning I run the risk of at the very least having a stomach ache, and at the worst, possibly being on the toilet for an hour!

But I'm just grateful that it doesn't happen after every meal anymore!

Hope everyone is well,
Elyse

Katie G · 03-01-2004, 08:39 AM

Hi again Elyse. I'm so sorry to hear that you have been diagnosed with MS. I hope that you can fight it and live a close to normal life; I know some who don't even seem that sick from it, and can function very well. As far as the Colestid, mine look just like yours. Some days they almost choke me because they're so big.

I still have occasional "breakthrough" diarrhea myself whether I've eaten too soon after taking them or not, but at least I can get to the toilet in time. Used to be I couldn't hold it back at all until I started the Colestid. However, most of the time (at least 90%), my stools are formed and sometimes very large.

You're right about timing the medication too. I have to take blood pressure medication, so I take that first thing in the a.m. (around 6:00 a.m.); and then Colestid around 7:00 a.m. I'm not real good about eating breakfast until at least 9:00 a.m., so letting enough time go by is not really an issue. Sometimes if I sleep in (like the occasional weekend), I'll only let 1/2 hour go by between my BP med and Colestid just so I can eat something before noon.

Please check with your doctor before changing the dose of your Colestid. I only take 2 every a.m. and have been that way since I started a year and a half ago. I'm not sure about taking 3 one day, and then 4 another; only your doctor could answer that question.

So good to see you on the boards again. I'm doing ok overall - at least with my digestive tract. Unfortunately, I'm now going through long-term treatment for my TMJ disorder which has been causing chronic headaches, neck and back pain. I've been posting a lot on the TMJ boards to others - it's so good to have people who share your experiences to talk to.

Hang in there and keep me posted on how you're doing,
Katie G

purple2067 · 03-01-2004, 08:18 PM

Katie, thanks so much for your support and concern. It means a lot. I seem to be doing OK for the moment with the MS. I go to local doctors here in Staten Island for my other health problems, but there was nobody good here who specializes in MS. So now I see an MS specialist at NYU Medical Center/Hospital For Joint Disease in Manhattan (which is the doctor capital of the world!). He thinks we caught it early enough that I shouldn't really have many problems from it. I started on the interferon injections very soon after the diagnosis, and they're supposed to slow down the disease process tremendously. I'm sorry to hear about your continued TMJ problems. They thought I had it when I was a kid. Sometimes my jaw does crack, but it's nothing I can't live with. My mom used to have to sleep with a bite plate. Actually, I think my symptoms started to clear up when I started sleeping with a retainer in my mouth (got my braces removed when I was 13) that resembles a clear plastic mouth guard.

I hope your current treatment works well for you. It's always something, isn't it?

I've actually been on the boards pretty regularly, posting on the Eye & Vision board and sometimes the MS board. I just haven't had the need to come back to the digestive disorders board until now!

I actuallly have to make an appointment to see my GI specialist. I saw him in January and he told me to come back in 3 months but I didn't make an appointment. I better call him. Maybe I'll go in sooner.

You see, I thought I had a theory that if I slept late then I could eat and not have the diahrrea. Well, throw that one out the window. Yesterday I slept until 12, took my other medicine first and took the Colestid and hour later, waited about 20 minutes or so to eat, and almost didn't make it to the bathroom. Saturday I woke up around 11, and was going to a surprise party lunch, so I didn't have breakfast. I took the Colestid an hour after taking my other medicine as usual, then waited 1/2 hour to eat. I was OK when I was only eating cookies, but when they brought out the actual lunch food and I ate that, I was done for. I had to leave anyway, and I only live about 5 mintues from where the party was. Sorry for being so graphic, but it was coming out of me as I sat down on the toilet at my house. (I generally do not like to do that in other people's homes if I can help it.) There just seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why this is happening again. I was doing so well for such a long time. Now I'm getting worse again. I think I'm going to start keeping a log of what I eat in the morning and how long I wait to eat after taking the Colestid. I'll write down how I felt after eating, that way maybe I can try to see if there is some kind of pattern. I love to eat bagels for breakfast, and today I got excited because I am going to be subbing at a school that is right down the block from Dunkin Donuts (and they have such good bagel sandwiches) and I was thinking about getting breakfast there tomorrow. Then I remembered that if I do, I won't be anywhere near a toilet! The only time I really seem to be OK is when I just eat something very small for breakfast, like a cereal bar. But that is very hard when I am teaching and won't be able to have a snack in the morning before lunch.

Then I thought that it only happened when I drank chocolate milk with breakfast. So, I stopped drinking chocolate milk. (I began having water or decaf iced tea with my breakfast!) But no, regardless of whether or not I have milk, I still have to go to the bathroom. Then I tried cutting out butter. Nope. I tried all these dietary changes and still no success. I am afraid I have to call my doctor again.