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Constipation – Treatments

February 4, 2022
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Transcript

What about treatments? Initially when we see patients who have constipation, we’ll recommend pretty much dietary intake, fluid intake. Now, if that doesn’t help, then we also encourage folks to make sure that they have increased fiber in their diet. Let’s say, they’ve tried it, doesn’t work, then we would move on to stool softeners. But let’s say patient tried it, didn’t work. What else? Well, you want to make sure that when you’ve done your assessment of the patient that hey, are they taking pain medications? Are they taking certain types of anti-histamines things which can dry the patient out? And so therefore, constipation is a natural consequence. You have to try to eliminate and remove all those types of things. And then, let’s say, you’ve done that. Patient still has constipation. There are some new agents such as linaclotide, which can be used for patients who have significant chronic constipation. And one other thing I should mention, in the case of patients who have to take chronic opioids, there are also new medications which can help with constipation and still allow the patient to have the pain-relieving effect of medication.

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