Will my extended release medication work correctly if i have diarrhea?

My Mom has severe back and neck pain problems. She started on a new extended release medication that comes in a capsule with tiny beads inside. She doesn't know how to work a computer or the $200 iPhone that she has, so here I'm looking up the info for her. I basically just need to know if the meds will absorb into her blood stream or be pooped out. The medication is not for pain, its for her depression or something.

Ah, excellent question. As a rule of thumb, it takes about 24 hrs to poop something out once we eat it. This is for a normal non diarrheal GI tract.

In bad cases of diarrhea, this journey can be cut as short as 12 hrs, maybe even 8, tho this is less common.

So… If your mother is taking a sustained release capsule of 12 hrs or less, I would say she is in the clear and is absorbing all of her meds. There are 18 and 24 hr formulations out there, and those would be in danger of being evacuated before all the drug is delivered.

There's also the risk of some kind of malabsorption syndrome with her diarrhea when even under the best of circumstances, the drug is not completely absorbed.

Your mom is probably going to be okay if this is a short term (less than 1 week) problem. When we run across long term disease such as Crohn's, irritable bowel syndrome, celiac disease, etc, drug malabsorption by mouth can be a big problems for pharmacists to solve.

Source: I'm a pharmacist.