Reply to "How long does immodium stay in the blood?"

Try as I might, I have not found any documentation in the medical literature showing tolerance over time to Imodium (loperamide). This does not mean that it will work for you forever, but that tolerance will not be the issue. Just like its cousins, opiate pain killers, the GI effects are stable. The opiate pain killers, however, are known to induce tolerance to the central nervous system effects over time. But loperamide does not have CNS effects in therapeutic doses.

But, it is true that you may experience withdrawal symptoms if you stop it abruptly after long term use. This is not tolerance, but dependence. So, yes, you are right that you might become dependent. But I figure, so what? My goal is to be functional now. You can always gradually reduce your dose over time.

Imodium has been safely used long term for high output ileostomies for many decades. I feel that Imodium saved me from terrible function, while my pouch gradually improved over the years. My use has gone from 8 per day to 1 per day over about 15 years. Sort of the opposite of tolerance, no?

So, basically, for chronic diarrhea, you figure out what your daily dose should be over, several days, and take divided doses or a single daily dose for maintenance. You do not need to time them to meals or BMs for chronic use.

Jan