For a medication that is only available on an emergency basis, Zelnorm still creates a buzz. In case you somehow missed the whole Zelnorm controversy, I have recently published an overview of Zelnorm, which covers the rise and fall of this compelling constipation treatment:
| | Twitter | Newsletter Signup | Forum | |
I had a bit of history with Zelnorm when dealing with Gastroparesis. I wanted to try Domperidome, my gastro doctor didn’t want to since it’s not officially available in the US. He wanted me to take Metoclopramide(Reglan) which I was wary of due to the side effects. We kind of compromised on Zelnorm, even though officially it was only approved for women with IBS-C. I am a male who suffered from IBS-D previous to my dealings with gastroparesis.
Of the three drugs, Domperidome was by far the safest one to try and is used all over the world, but here in the US it has/was not submitted for FDA trials, however it is/was available if your doctor will write a prescription to a compounding pharmacy. My doctor was not willing to do this.
The Zelnorm may have helped my situation a bit, but I don’t attribute it as curing my GP. I eventually tapered off of it after I started recovering from GP. I later learned about it being black labeled by the FDA. I thought I had also heard it had problems for some people where it would shut off blood supply to parts of the digestive tract.
However, for those that it helped greatly & did not cause side effects, I feel for them if they’re not able to get a hold of it anymore.