Prescription medicine options for IBS are extremely limited. Luckily, researchers and pharmaceutical companies are working hard to fill this gap. The following medications are all in various stages of testing in terms of their safety and effectiveness in treating symptoms. Read the individual articles to find out more about these drugs, and where they stand in the clinical research and FDA approval process.
Medicine for IBS
- Asimadoline
Asimadoline, a kappa opoid agonist, is currently undergoing clinical trials to assess its ability to safely treat IBS symptoms. Its effects appear to be greatest in terms of easing abdominal pain and discomfort.
Medications for Chronic Constipation
- Prucalopride
Prucalopride is a 5-HT-4 agonist and thus is in the same class of medications as Zelnorm. However, prucalopride was designed differently so as to reduce the possibility of the serious side effects that resulted in Zelnorm being taken off the market.
- Linaclotide
Linaclotide, classified as a GC-C agonist, is undergoing testing as a potential treatment for both constipation predominant IBS (IBS-C) and chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC).
- Plecanatide
Plecanatide is another GC-C agonist that is currently in the very preliminary stages of testing as a treatment for chronic constipation.
Medicine for Non-Constipation IBS
- Xifaxan
Xifaxan, an antibiotic used to treat travelers' diarrhea and small intestine bacteria overgrowth (SIBO), is currently being reviewed by the FDA as a possibly treatment for non-constipation IBS.
