Xifaxan experience

BoulderSteve

Hello again everyone!

Quick background... 10cm stage 3 found two years ago. 8 rounds of chemo, 25 sessions of radiation, surgery (with bag) and then reversal surgery. I'm a year past the last surgery and was NED (yay!) at my last oncology appointment

I had been complaining to my oncologist about my bowel functioning for quite a while. I asked for advice on the forum here and received some good suggestions. At my year follow-up, my oncologist finally agreed that my bowel recovery "should be further along than it seems to be" and put me on Xifaxan. My understanding is that it's an antibiotic that kills off gut bacteria and allows "good" gut flora to re-establish.

What a game changer! For the entire past year my "normal" has been 3-4 days of no bowel movements followed by a day and a half of remaining within 10 yards of a toilet at all times. Tons of cramping and bloating. It was slowly getting better in the last month or two, but the pattern was pretty consistent.

After two weeks of Xifaxan, probiotics and fiber supplement, I am roughly a bowel movement per day and there's only been a single half-day of "toilet time"! All of the issues I'd been experiencing the past year are tremendously reduced... minimal cramping and bloating. I wish I had started it much earlier and I wanted to bring it up here in case it might help anyone else out.

Good luck with your recoveries!

spikecjc

This sounds VERY similar to my situation. I hope everything is still going well and would like to hear more if you get this message. I was almost "normal" or at least manageable when I got hit with a reoccurrence of rectal cancer and I am now scheduled for an APR in 3-4 weeks. I don't know if you had that procedure, but I am concerned as to what life is like after the APR. I am very active and would like to continue to be active. Thanks.