Laxative Bowel Movements

Laxatives are a type of medication that can be prescribed to increase bowel movements and ease the release of human faeces. They are most commonly used to treat and prevent constipation. They are generally administered through food, tablets or injections. Characteristics of laxatives may vary, depending on their required purpose. Some laxatives are very fast acting, to expel faeces quickly. Whereas, others may be slow acting and will only start to have an effect after a few hours. For example, non-prescribed laxatives may be taken before going to sleep, and only slightly encourage bowel movements the following morning. In contrast, doctors may administer a patient in extreme discomfort with a very fast acting and severe laxative, to instantly …show more content…
As seen in Figure 8, the graph does not start at the origin, but starts at a negative concentration at approximately 10 hours. As mentioned above, a drug could be modelled to have a delay in real life, however, it is impossible to model a surge function that technical mathematically. Hence, the equation , is the next closest option, but is still unrealistic. Additionally, both Laxative surge functions have an extremely intense positive incline to the maximum concentration. This may result in extreme discomfort and serious side effects for the patient. Furthermore, as mentioned previously, these surge functions also do not take food, drinks, exercise and the physical characteristics of the person, into consideration. All these factors contribute to determining how the Laxatives act (absorption/clearance rate and maximum concentration). For example, eating lots of food would absorb some of the drug, thus lowering the maximum bloodstream concentration, and resulting in more waste for the Laxative to remove. Therefore, the formula used in this surge function is not realistic, since everyone will react slightly differently to the …show more content…
The surge function made it simple to see a general absorption/clearance rate and maximum concentration level of a drug, despite not considering different physical features of individuals. Laxatives were researched, and a mathematical model (Figure 7 and 8) were made to represent fast acting medical grade and slow acting non-prescribed Laxatives. Furthermore, the effect of changing certain parameters (‘’ and ‘’) on the drugs bloodstream concentration, time of administration, absorption rate and clearance rate, were clearly