Constipation medication is often sold over the counter and is one of those drugs that are easy to get your hands on, but did you know that these medications can harm you?
Constipation medications, also called laxatives, work to force the body to expel waste. Different drugs are designed to work in different ways; some make the waste softer by taking water from other parts of your body and dumping it in the colon; others will expand the waste, so that it’s so much that the body is forced to expel it. Some will even relax the necessary muscles for a while so that you can pass stool.
You will get the relief that you’re after for your constipation, but you are also harming your body each time you take constipation medications. Let’s have a look at some of the dangers of taking laxatives:
- The first and foremost danger is that you could mask another illness by using laxatives. If you are constantly constipated, you need to find out why so that you can address the problem and not the symptoms. You may have another health problem that’s causing you constipation. Taking laxatives will give you relief, so you will likely not be keen to know what the root cause of your constipation is.
- Sometimes, you can get reactions like dizziness, nausea, bloating, stomach cramps, and more. This will happen especially with first time users or users who change from one laxative to another.
- There is the danger of addiction. Naturally, when you have waste that needs to be expelled from the body, your brain sends messages to the necessary muscles to constrict and release the waste. If you use laxatives constantly, your body will understand that it can only expel waste when you take a pill.
- There are constipation medications that work by pooling moisture from the rest of your gut to your colon so that waste can get soft and be expelled. There are 2 dangers with this kind of laxative; you can get dehydrated and you can get diarrhoea if too much water is put into the stool.
- Some laxatives can cause mineral and vitamin depletion in your body. Even natural laxatives sometimes do this, so that you will have low levels of vitamins A, D, K and E and magnesium.
- Constipation medication that causes stool mass to increase can cause muscular damage in the long run.
- Some constipation medication has been reported to cause kidney stones and kidney failure. This may be due to the fact that it robs the kidneys of the water required for processing waste.
- When under medication, the use of laxatives can cause reactions. If you are under other medications, you should consult your doctor before you take any kind of laxative, even those that you can purchase over the counter.
Constipation happens to all of us once in a while, but laxative use is definitely not a good solution. If you must use anything for relief, try natural laxatives. Eat lots of raw fruit and vegetables. Drink lots of water. Check on the internet for the best kinds of roughage to treat constipation and add them to your diet. Constipation medication can only cause dependency in the long run.
