Spastic Bowel
How do I know if I have spastic bowel syndrome?
My 65 year old mother has had
a kind of spastic colon
bowel disorder for at least 15 years. For awhile, she
took "Chardonna" which was a rather heavy narcotic to
relax her gut. I think chardonna is a mixture of activated
charcoal, bella donna and something like benedryl. It is
a small darkish tablet.
Next, chardonna became hard to
get so she moved to basically
the same kinda pills but with henbane (another heavy narcotic
alkaloid from the Nightshade Family of herbs) in it instead of
bella donna. Again, it is an over-the-counter prescribed drug.
She takes a pill about every
4 hours. She is getting older and
forgetful, though. Also, on high blood pressure medicine.
Some of her symptoms are: bloating
after meals, intestinal gas,
I think she craps fairly often and with urgency. She claims
that "I can't eat certain foods". She doesn't drink milk, anymore
cause it bothers her. Spicey foods give her problems.
I think she also has a hiatal
hernia. She smokes 2 pkgs of
cigarettes a day, too. Her condition could be considered
"spastic bowel syndrome" or perhaps a varietion of it.
Any recommended treatments would
be appreciated. I'd like to
wean her off the Nightshade narcotics and get her blood pressure
down to normal range, too.
>Next, chardonna became
hard to get so she moved to basically
the same kinda
>pills but with henbane (another heavy narcotic
alkaloid from the Nightshade
>Family of herbs) in it instead of
bella donna. Again, it is an
>over-the-counter prescribed drug.
She takes a pill about every
4 hours. She
>is getting older and
forgetful, though. Also, on high blood pressure
>medicine.
Checked the web for Henbane.
I knew that
one of the prescription drugs I take is
Levsin (actually the generic version is
hyoscyamine). And previously had found
out that is was one of the belladonna family
plants alkaliods. The latin name for henbane
is Hyoscyamus niger. The two main active
ingredients in the plant are hyoscyamine
(which is an the anti-spasmotic) and
hyoscine (which produces the narcotic effects).
So you might want to see if she
can get a
prescription for hyoscyamine. I can get
generic for pretty cheap around here. It
is available in a number of forms: Long
acting time release, subligual, etc.
Some of her symptoms are:
bloating after meals, intestinal gas,
I
>think she craps fairly often and with urgency. She claims
that "I can't eat
>certain foods". She doesn't drink milk, anymore
cause it bothers her. Spicey
>foods give her problems.
This is pretty typical of IBS...
the bloating
after meals could be either the IBS or the
hiatal hernia.
I think she also has a hiatal
hernia. She smokes 2
>pkgs of
cigarettes a day, too. Her
condition could be considered
"spastic
>bowel syndrome" or perhaps a varietion of it.
Spastic bowel is an older term for IBS.
Any recommended treatments
>would be appreciated. I'd like to
wean her off the Nightshade
narcotics and
>get her blood pressure
down to normal range, too.
First thing she needs to do is
stop smoking.
That isn't helping any of her medical conditions.
Also see if you can get her to
start exercising
more. Getting out for a walk regularly may
help with the IBS, the high blood pressure, and
perhaps even the forgetfullness. (saw a report
on TV news a few months ago that there were
some studies that indicated that increasing
physical activity of older people helped with
the thinking processes). I know that walking
did a lot of really great things for my Mom as
she got older. (We got a dog right before I went
to college, and we hadn't ever had a dog I could
take for walks, so I trained this one before I left.
The dog then pestered my Mom to walk him. It
made a lot of difference in her health)
