Pa­tient re­port finds con­sti­pa­tion con­di­tion not well-man­aged, open­ing door for bet­ter ed­u­ca­tion from phar­ma

Ad­ver­tis­ing for con­sti­pa­tion treat­ments of­ten us­es light-heart­ed hu­mor in an ef­fort to spur open dis­cus­sions about the some­times stig­ma­tized top­ic. How­ev­er, that may not be enough to get peo­ple to take the con­di­tion se­ri­ous­ly, a new pa­tient re­port from Phree­sia finds.

Few­er than one-fifth (17%) of pa­tients with con­sti­pa­tion sur­veyed un­der­stand the longer-term health risks of con­sti­pa­tion such as he­m­or­rhoids and bow­el in­con­ti­nence. Many are try­ing to man­age their con­di­tion with over-the-counter med­i­cines, but of­ten for much longer than rec­om­mend­ed. An equal 68% say they use home reme­dies or OTC meds to man­age con­sti­pa­tion. But while 90% un­der­stand that OTCs are not in­tend­ed for long-term use, 50% have used an OTC con­sti­pa­tion med­i­cine for more than a year.

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