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From: sandy@telepath.com
Date: 4/3/00
Time: 9:09:12 AM
Remote Name: 216.14.3.97
I have suffered with IBS for over 20 years. I am a female, age 56. Last Fall, after eating a light meal, I began to have cramping. It quickly (within 10-20 minutes) went from the usual cramping that I experience before I have an episode of diarrhea to extreme cramps. As the cramps continued to get worse I began to perspire heavily, my vision went in and out, and although I felt like I needed to tell my husband to take me to the hospital, I couldn't seem to hold on to a thought long enough to speak it to him. (I use Levsin, SL for the cramping, and 20-25 minutes into this episode, I had taken approximately 6 tablets.) About 15 minutes later, I finally was able to tell my husband how badly I felt, but I was also becoming aware that I was "coming out of" whatever it was that had happened to me.
I had another similar experience about 3 months later. My gastrointestinal physician suspects these were "vasovagal nerve" response to the amount of pain my body was experiencing. He put me on long-acting Levsin that I take twice a day, in addition to the tablets I use under my tongue when I start cramping.
Just last week I read about a new medicine for IBS, called Lotronex that just came on the market in March. I now have a prescription for it and am hoping it will work better for me than the Levsin. The new drug is not supposed to make your mouth as dry as the other drug, and is less apt to make you sleepy.
I'd be interested in hearing from anyone else who has had problems with vasovagal problems associated with Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
From: bev
My 86 yr. Mother suffers from Vaso-Vagel also, it is SO SCARY, she get awful stomach aches and tries to go to the bathroom after several days of constipation, she geta a pain in the back of her neck starts to throw up then gets diarreaha the reason the the confusion and near blalck outs is the blood pressure drops( in her case to 66/18) we thought the first time she was dying from a heart attack, it unfortunately dosn't get any better. I was told by the dr. since we spent the weekend in the hospital for it that over 70% of the population suffers from this and this is what Elivs Presley died from.. If anyone has any advice please let me known . I am glad I thought of going to the web...thanks