Anyone Feel Terrible on Cholestyramine?

NOT a coincidence!!! My symptoms got so much worse on it that I thought I was going to die. Started out at 1/4 dose 1x day and worked up over a number of days. I'm sure I increased too much too fast. Quit after 11 days. If I'd known then what I know now, I would have done things much differently.

Speaking from experience, I would recommend doing the following:

- stop completely until you get back to baseline
- start again with TINY doses (1/16 of a dose) four times a day (30 minutes before breakfast, lunch, dinner and at bedtime); eat some fat in your meals
- avoid inflammatory foods like gluten, dairy, sugar
- take anti-inflammatory supplements like high quality fish (not krill) oil, turmeric or curcumin, quercetin or Japanese knotweed, or the best I've used - the very expensive SPM Active by Metagenics
- if that dose is too much, reduce it further or use modified citrus pectin, activated charcoal, zeolite, or some other binder (good to use more than one kind or to alternate them)

Note:
My doc had me start at 1 dose per day and work up to 4x day. This was a bad idea. Once I got to 4x day, I realized I felt some relief from it but it would wear off around 3-4 hours later just before the next dose. I'm guessing that it has a short half life. Cholestyramine is a highly potent binder and will pull all kinds of toxins out of you and cause a lot of pain if you have a lot of toxins and a poor elimination system. Make sure you move your bowels daily by whatever means necessary - magnesium citrate, Vit C, coffee enemas, castor oil packs, etc.

If you have access to a sauna and can tolerate heat, that should help tremendously, or so I'm told. I've never had the opportunity to use one.

I tried Cholestyramine at 1/8 tsp for about 4 days. My stomach hurt so bad and I normally move my bowels several times a day and became so constipated. I was drinking water, prune juice, eating Vitamin C and magnesium with no help. I could not tolerate it.

My new doctor prefers cholestyramine but has me on activated charcoal and pectasol-c for the time being. Welchol is another prescription option that isn't as harsh. I may try that eventually.

For those of us that can't afford the compounded Cholestyramine, it is still worth it for the toxin binding and elimination. I/we may have a rough night, feel extra fatigued, sleep 10 hours and feel like warm garbage after a big dose, but that next day is like 80% symptom free...anyway that's been my experience as one who is learning to manage thru diet and supplements. I take it only once in a while, like now only maybe once a month and I learned you can take lower doses to better manage it and use milder binders like activated charcoal and blue chlorella powder along with it; oh yeah and u can take psyllium and magnesium citrate to move things along.