constant yellow diarrhea

I have had yellow diarrhea on and off for several months, ever since I had heart stents inserted and they added some new medicines to my regime,(Simvastatin, Plavix, Pepcid) but for the last week, it has gotten constant and totally watery and more frequent. what should I do first. What tests would I need?

Drug Induced Diarrhea

It is likely that you have drug induced diarrhea. Simvastatin, Plavix and Pepcid can all cause diarrhea as side effects. This can be very frustrating as the drugs are very important for you, particularly the Simvastatin and Plavix.

You need to discuss with your doctor the concern that this is a drug induced diarrhea. Sometimes changing the drug to a similar drug can be beneficial. For example, changing the Simvastatin to Atorvastatin, a different statin drug can stop the diarrhea symptoms. Plavix, generically called Clopidogrel, is an anti-platelet agent that is used in patients with Ischemic heart disease. Aspirin alone could be considered as an alternative or even Warfarin a different type of blood thinning drug. Pepcid could be changed to a PPI or proton pump inhibitor drug as an alternative.

When considering drug induced diarrhea, it is best to change or stop one drug at a time (but only on the guidance of your doctor). If changing or stopping the drugs makes little difference then you may need further investigations done to look for the cause and your doctor may wish to refer you to a GI physician about this. These investigations would normally include blood tests, stool sampling and maybe endoscopic tests such as a colonoscopy procedure or flexible sigmoidoscopy. These tests would help determine if there was any other organic cause for the diarrhea, although this would seem less likely as your diarrhea started when you were put on the new medicines.