Suffering Mother

My Mother is 68 yr old and has been suffering from chronic diarrhea for several months. She has lost more than 25 lbs.  She has seen a Gastroenterologist, had a clear colonoscopy and been given several different anti-diarrheal medications (sorry no idea which), none of which have provided any relief.  She and three of her 9 sisters have successfully battled breast cancer, one of her sisters had Lupus, and they all tend to be slighlty arthritic.  She recently had surgery for severe vericose veins in June.  Her current physician has offered no further treatments and she is very frustrated.  She tends not to share info about her health with others so getting this much information means that she is very concerned, as am I.  I suggested that she find a new Doctor, do you have any other suggestions.  She also mentioned that her friend suggested she try to take a probiotic supplement, whatever that is.

[CalGal]

Probiotics are the good bacteria that are in our GI systems. They should have a 'certain' number and type, but they can become skewed dure to illness, infection or medication. Probiotics have a decent track record of helping people bring their digestive systems back in line if the problem is due to 'skewing.' There are several good brands on the market that include Culturelle, Digestive Advantage-IBS (not only for IBS alone), and PB8 among others. They're worth a try. Can't hurt her unless she has pancreatitis or is immunosuppressed.

If your mom was on antibiotics while/before/during surgery, those antibiotics could have resulted in the problem.

Also consider checking out food intolerance issues. You'd be surprised at how many foods that we've eaten 'for years' suddenly can cause a problem.