Levsin

[briarrose]

I'm curious about who's taking Levsin, what their chief complaint was to be put on it and how their doing with it.

I looked up the medication yesterday and see that it has a pretty broad usage. I was prescribed it for stomach spasms.

any info would be great guys

thx

steph

[avais1]

Hello,

Levsin worked wonders for my stomache cramps, but it did make me constipated.

[Sunfish]

hi steph -

i was put on levsin (generic name Hyoscyamine sulfate) this past december for lower GI cramping/pain due to ulcerative colitis. it was not at all a good med for my body, and i probably shouldn't have been put on it to begin with (it was a stand-in GI doc from a hospitalization, not someone who really "gets" my autonomic issues.)

the med is an anticholergenic, which means it generally slows things down...thus the idea of it helping with cramping. the problem for me was that my whole system is generally already slow so it brought other issues to the forefront. it flipped out my GI motility issues to the point of nausea & vomiting b/c it not only helped rid the lower GI spasms, it stopped the normal stomach/GI contractions elsewhere. and it was likely part of the mix that pushed my urinary retention over the top too...to the point where i couldn't urinate at all on my own. in an ironic way this may have been a good thing in the long run b/c it brought the issue to the forefront as opposed to the more gradual course it was otherwise taking, which may have eliviated additional aggravation with testing, infections, kidney/bladder damage etc. so...i want to make it clear that the levsin didnt' cause these issues for me, it just made existing issues worse. obviously i stopped it pretty quickly, and my primary doc couldn't believe i'd been on it in the first place. usually i'm super proactive with checking out meds, but since my other issues had been more dormant i didn't object b/c the UC thing was new for me.

anyway, i didn't have any "other" problems with the med...meaning that i didn't have side effects, only problems with it doing what it's designed to do in the first place. i would only caution you in terms of if you have issues with things being "slow" in your body ever already...i know this isn't the case for all, but just a heads up.

another piece of trivia, since there's been a good amount of talk on the board about mestinon, is that in some ways (please no attacks from the pharmacists or chemists out there...i know it's not exact!) levsin works on the body in an opposite way. or rather it's in the "opposite" drug category. levsin is an anticholergenic whereas mestinon is a cholergenic. so...the fact that i'm now on mestinon with some success affirms that levsin wasn't a med for me.

so....hope i didn't scare you but didn't want to leave you responseless either. i hope that you have MUCH better luck with the med than i did!

:-)melissa

[steph37822]

oops

[MightyMouse]

I take it for GI spasms. It's been quite useful for me--cuts the pain and spasming in just a few minutes. I use only the sublingual form as it gets into my system quite quickly. Nina

[briarrose]

Thank you guys! That's exactly what I needed to hear. I was prescibed the medication for stomach spasms.

I was scared when I looked up the medication and saw that it was for urinary incontinence and that's not my issue. It was reassuring hearing everything you guys had to say. Thank you very much for responding and NO, you guys didn't scare me at all.

Steph

[BuddyLeesWife]

When Dr. Grubb prescribed Proamatine for my husband he also wrote a prescription for Levsin to try as an alternative if the Proamatine was not effective. Because his episodes of syncope were so infrequent, he was prescribed Proamatine to take sort of like a person would take nitro - when the symptoms appear. The drug was to raise his blood pressure before he reached the point of passing out. As I recall, one of the side effects of Levsin is an elevation in blood pressure. He never did try the Levsin so I have no comments on the medication. I just wanted to alert you to the increased BP side effect.

[tracy]

I am on Levsin and Lapressor. They told me the Levsin for me is to help raise my BP, but mostly to relax my muscles when my heart starts beating to fast. So far, so good for me. Hope it works for you.