Xylocaine (lidocaine hydrochloride) enemas

Just wanted to let you know about a xylocaine (lidocaine hydrochloride) enema treatment I did for 2 months that worked for me.

I started flaring last April and increased my Salofalk enemas from every other night to nightly. I only got worse with more and more bleeding and up to 15 trips to the bathroom per day to pretty much just bleed. I started budesonide enemas for a month and they worked great. I switched back to Salofalk and started bleeding again a couple of days later.  I then tried the 2 week antibiotic treatment that worked for Kazygirl, but that didn't work for me. Went back on the budesonide enemas for a month and they did nothing for me this time.

I started cutting most sugar and a lot of carbs out of my diet - by doing this, I was down to 6-8 bathroom trips per day.

In the middle of August, I started using 30 ml of 2% xylocaine as enemas. I used one every night for 2 months. After 2 weeks - down to 2-3 bathroom trips per day and still bleeding, although not streams of blood anymore. After 1 month - occasional bleeding and still 2-3 bathroom visits/day. When my 2 month treatment ended a week and a half ago, I tried to go back to Salofalk enemas which had worked so well after my initial diagnosis. I bled slightly the next day. I used those for 2 nights and then stopped - it seems my colon doesn't like those anymore. So now it's been a little over a week of no enemas and I've had no bleeding since the episode after the salofalk enemas. I'm going to the bathroom usually once a day sometimes 2. I still have slight cramping before I go sometimes, but nothing like before. Hopefully this relief lasts a while for me - I'm finally able to get out and do stuff now.

I know scooterk started this treatment around the same time as me and it was working well for him as well. Hopefully he'll come on and let us know how he's doing now.

Tara

 

Quincy: My GI recommended just using them for 2 months, so I'm not using them anymore (ended about a week and a half ago).  I also started Asacol just after starting the xylocaine enemas and we're hoping that will keep me in remission. The papers that describe the use of xylocaine just used it for 2 months and don't mention a maintenance dose. We're going to wait and see how I feel and think about using them again later if needed. We don't know if there are any long term effects of continuous use.

Tara

CONNOR,
The xylocaine comes as a 2% gel in a tube. On my prescription, my GI wrote 30ml of 2% xylocaine mixed as a gel. The pharmacy spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out how to mix it, then decided just to give me ready made 30ml tubes of 2% xylocaine. They also ordered a 30ml rectal syringe so you have empty the tube into the syringe to use it. Apparently you can buy the tubes of xylocaine OTC, but I used the prescription so my insurance would pay for it. Unfortunately they would not pay for it and it cost me about $700 for my 2 month supply.

Scooterk started the treatment at the same time as me and was making the gel from lidocaine powder...probably less expensive than what I was using.

Tara

super interesting! scooterk was having great success with this too. It would be interesting to figure out the effect of xylocaine on inflamed colonic tissue, b/c it obviously works for some (the studies that prompted these experiments were VERY promising).