Effects
Orally administered sodium picosulfate is generally used for thorough evacuation of the bowel, usually for patients who are preparing to undergo a colonoscopy. It works very quickly, so access to a toilet at all times is recommended. It starts off by making bowel movements looser and more frequent, but within an hour or so of taking it the patient should experience diarrhea.
The most common side effects of picosulfate are abdominal cramps and diarrhea.
The use of sodium picosulfate has also been associated with certain electrolyte disturbances, such as hyponatremia and hypokalemia. Patients are often required to drink large amounts of clear fluids to reestablish the electrolyte balance as well as rehydrate.
On July 16, 2012 the FDA approved Prepopik, a formulation containing sodium picosulfate, magnesium oxide, and citric acid, for use as a bowel cleanser in preparation for colonoscopy.
Read more about this topic: Sodium Picosulfate
Famous quotes containing the word effects:
“Each of us, even the lowliest and most insignificant among us, was uprooted from his innermost existence by the almost constant volcanic upheavals visited upon our European soil and, as one of countless human beings, I can’t claim any special place for myself except that, as an Austrian, a Jew, writer, humanist and pacifist, I have always been precisely in those places where the effects of the thrusts were most violent.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“Upon the whole, necessity is something, that exists in the mind, not in objects; nor is it possible for us ever to form the most distant idea of it, consider’d as a quality in bodies. Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but that determination of thought to pass from cause to effects and effects to causes, according to their experienc’d union.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Let us learn to live coarsely, dress plainly, and lie hard. The least habit of dominion over the palate has certain good effects not easily estimated.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)