Why does constipation seem to be a side effect to virtually every oral medical treatment? What exactly are they doing that cause constipation?
Pain relievers can put the body into spasm to relieve the pain IIRC from some medication I took a while back.
Any proper doctors around to answer?
Any medication which slows gastro-intestinal motility can cause constipation. The big culprits tend to be the narcotic pain-killers, as they slow down motility big-time. Other neurotransmitter mediators, such as antidepressants do the same thing.
Some drugs can cause big-time diarrhea. Any antibiotic falls into this category.
Truly, a lot of medications are more bowel-neutral. Don’t judge a medicine by its profile in the PDR. Side-effects reported there include any symptom at all that an individual had on the medicine under study.
Did you have a specific drug in mind?
QtM, MD