Is it possible, even when you’re talking about diarrhea, that the cure could be worse than the disease?

As a person who has to deal with the dreaded d-word more often than average, I’ve had the opportunity to put many anti-diarrheal medications to the test. And loperamide hydrochlorone, the active ingredient in Imodium products, has always done the trick. Imodium Advanced chewable tablets contain not only loperamide, but add simethicone to help treat gas. So the new Imodium Advanced seemed like a wonderful idea – a loperamide tablet that also combats gas and could be chewed instead of taken with water. Wouldn’t that be convenient?

In theory, it would. But in practice, the taste of these tablets is almost beyond belief. And I don’t mean in a good way. I’m not even sure what to call it – bitter? Sour? Pure evil in chewable tablet form? In an extreme burst of optimism, Imodium has labelled this flavor "mint." Yeah, right… it's about as "minty" as your average unwashed athlete's body odor. The texture of the tablets is both gummy and chalky, and the residue is difficult to swallow. So not only do they taste nasty, but they hang around your poor defenseless tastebuds for a long time.

After detecting a similar (but fortunately much fainter) taste when taking a broken Imodium caplet, I have decided the horrible taste is possibly loperamide itself. So a palatable loperamide chewable may be impossible to produce. However, I have tried a liquid version with loperamide that does not have the same horrible taste, though it is less convenient than chewable tablets. All seemed to work equally well, generally stopping "the symptoms of diarrhea," as they call them, in one dose (I don’t know about you, but stopping "the symptoms of diarrhea" is good enough for me).

If you want to try chewables, others options are medications that contain bismuth subsalicylate (Pepto-Bismol) or attapulgite (Kaopectate) as their active ingredients (though, in my experience, these do not work as effectively as loperamide).

Here's the package blurbage:

Active Ingredients: Each chewable tablet contains: Loperamide HCl (2 mg), Simethicone (125 mg)

Inactive Ingredients: Cellulose Acetate, Corn Starch, D&C Yellow #10, Dextrates, FD&C Blue #1, Flavors, Microcrystalline Cellulose, Polymethacrylates, Saccharin Sodium, Sorbitol, Stearic Acid, Sucrose, Tribasic Calcium Phosphate

Drug Interaction Precautions:

May cause drowsiness or dizziness; observe caution while driving or performing other tasks requiring alertness, coordination or physical dexterity. May cause dry mouth. Drink plenty of clear fluids to help prevent dehydration, which may accompany diarrhea. Notify your physician if diarrhea does not stop after a few days or if abdominal pain or distension or fever occurs. Do not exceed recommended dosage.

Recommended: No