Chronic Constipation - The truth about impacted feces and severe TMI

Factual Questions
1

Right up front I’ll say that if you are eating lunch or if you found me attractive or sexy before now…you may just want to skip ahead, because today’s subject is…poop.

I’ll start with a short anecdote which I think is the root of all of my problems. When I was three years old, I was hospitalized overnight for constipation. I had gone 31 days without a bowel movement and was becoming very sick. Laxatives, enemas, prunes, nothing would help, because I would sit in the corner and actively make the effort to hold it in. After a week, my pediatrician said “she’ll go, her body won’t allow that, give her a prune”. After two weeks they said, “make her sit on the toilet until she goes” and after 31 days I was sent to the hospital with a severely distended stomach and what looked like jaundice.

Ever since then, I have had a great deal of trouble with my bowel health. I have always had a distended stomach, even at my healthiest weight, when i was running and muscular, my stomach would poke out almost like I was newly pregnant, and it is always hard, like a full tummy after a meal.

I go three or four days at a time without pooping USUALLY, but as of late it’s gotten even worse going six or seven days, and when I finally do go, it’s…well…not enough to make up for lost time so to speak.

I’ve been prescribed prescription laxatives, I’ve taken Mag Citrate, I was on fiber therapy for about three months (with no success and a lot more gas), I increased my water intake, ate a lot of vegetables…blah blah blah. Doctor assured me it would pass (which seems odd since I’ve had the problem since I was three).

Anyway, what I’m wondering is, what’s the scoop on ‘impacted feces’? I’ve heard the herbalists and holistic doctors and naturalists and pushers of colon cleansers saying that we have POUNDS of impacted feces in our intestines that are ‘toxic’. And then I’ve heard doctors of Western medicine saying that’s a load of crap (if you’ll excuse the bon mot), and there’s no way you could impact feces in the colon.

But it seems to me, that I’m not clearing out like a regular human being should, and could I possibly be suffering from some sort of…back up, that traces back to my childhood?

2

Your situation is not unusual, Jarb. But I recommend you give up on the colon cleansers, and purveyers of “toxic retained compound” theorists. Ever try the prescription med “Miralax”? It’s not a laxative per se, not absorbed by the body, and is completely safe to use daily for years. Talk to your personal doc, or a gastro-enterologist about it.

If you’ve gone that route, I’d really have to recommend a consult by a gastro-enterologist for possible further studies.

Impacted feces usually happen when transit time thru the colon is too slow, and the colon sucks all the liquid out of the stool.

3

Do you know what the treatment in the hospital was when you were 3? Have you consulted any of these naturalist doctors? I agree you don’t sound like things are clearing out as they should, but then I’m not a medical person, just a concerned bystander.

4

I was given three consecutive enemas and then rehydrated overnight. It actually hurt so much to finally ‘push it out’ that I passed out for a few minutes :frowning:

5

Did you have Hirschsprung’s as a child? My nephew was diagnosed at three years old after consistent constipation. Surgery cured him right up.

6

Man, while I have nothing useful to add, I just can’t imagine not going for 6 to 7 days? If I don’t have one healthy BM a day I feel like crap, no pun intended.

7

While this reply may seem flip, it will “let the truth be know”.

Go to Mexico for a week. I went to Cabo a couple of years back and while I felt great when I was there, upon return I was faced with a condition that left no doubt about any thing left in my bowels.

We tried to avoid the water, etc. Only ate at the resort (a nice one). Something slipped by.

After 2 weeks of incredible by-pass, I KNOW nothing was left in my bowels.

8

I had a colonoscopy last year, my first one. And I have photos to prove that there’s nothing stuck in there! Not that QtM needs my backup, but all the cleansers and storys of pounds of impacted sh#t is bogus.

When I was younger I used to go every couple of days. Then some friends got me into taking coloidal minerals, also bogus BTW, but it did change my habits to at least twice a day, sometimes three. And I feel a lot better for it.

Good luck in your search for relief.

9

Did you have Hirschsprung’s as a child? My nephew was diagnosed at three years old after consistent constipation. Surgery cured him right up.

Odd you should mention that. My own daughter had problems going poo from an early age. In fact, she didn’t pass her meconium stool until at least a week after birth. I was told this was unusual and along with her other symptoms (poor weight gain, refusal to eat), she was referred to a pediatric gastro doctor at a major mid-Western medical center. She got a tissue sample from her rectum (poor thing!) and it came back that she didn’t have Hershprungs, but, that it was a learned behaviour.

Anyway, fast forward to now, she’s 2 yrs and 10 months old and during potty training, she held it for 5 days and finally went when we ‘intervened’ with Vaseline and a well-washed pinky. The poor thing.

Jar, I can’t imagine the worry and fretting your parents went through when you were in hospital at such a young age. If you don’t mind my asking, does it hurt now, when you poop? I mean, even when you aren’t waiting a long time?

I wonder if there is any connection between food allergies and this phenomenon. I was told that since my daughter was exclusively breast fed until 5 1/2 months, that it was very unusual for her to be so constipated.

10

I was breast fed for a long time. The doctors said my problem was psychological in nature and concluded that I’m creative and selfish and that I have no wish to dispose of the things I create, including poop.

Which resulted in a nightmare year or two of my life where every time I pooped, anyone who happened to be in the household had to come into the bathroom and applaud and wish it goodbye. There isn’t a big enough :rolleyes: in the world.

11

Funny, that same thing happened to me on my last trip to the USA!

12

These are exactly the same symptoms I have, and it does make life bloody miserable at times. Travelling can be nightmare, and it often keeps me awake at night because I can’t get myself comfortable. It even plays havoc with my sex life… when my stomach feels like a balloon full of custard, I just don’t want to be hugged tight or twisted into a pretzel, thankyouverymuch.

I’ve recently started using a food supplement called Lepicol (www.lepicol.com) after a friend with the same problem enthusiastically recommended it to me. It’s not a medication or a quack colon-cleansing cure, basically just a form of fibre which soaks up moisture and swells in order to provide bulk and help get things moving. So far I’ve already felt some improvement, although apparently it can take a few weeks until you notice the full effect.

One thing I will say is, if you do decide to look into this product, print the webpage out and show it to your doctor first in order to get his/her opinion. My doctor OK’ed it, saying it certainly wouldn’t do me any harm, but you’d be wise to check for yourself first.

Good luck, and do let us know how things go :).

13

I have absolutely no problems pooping (at LEAST once a day), but I sure do wish someone would do that for me from time to time. At work or home. . .doesn’t matter.

14

I wonder if Lieu (our house expert) might have something to add.

Sorry you’re going through this. I agree with whoever said to see a GI specialist. This would make me insane.

15

Holy blast from the past! Why was this thread ressurected? :smiley:

16

Well for heavens sake, its been a year now and we want to know how your doing!

17

jarbabyj, someone started a longest time without pooping thread in MPSIMS and this was one of the linked-to threads.

18

Oh, exactly the same. Doc says my bowel is probably permanently stretched out from when I was a child, and all the laxatives and things I’ve taken over the years have made the muscles lazy. There was a run there where I went every three days, but those days are gone.

And being on Atkins doesn’t help either, even with their PM Supplements.

19

Someone mentioned colonoscopy, and I can say: Been There Done That.

The stuff they give you that cleans you out so well is called, get ready for this folks:

Go-lytely

If there was ever a more ironic name for a medication, I don’t know of one. It’s like calling pure crystal methamphetimine “serene wakefulness.”

The printed instructions for Go-lyte were to mix this package of powder into a gallon of water, and drink a glass every three minutes until the gallon is consumed. Perform this the night before your morning colonoscopy.

The advice the nurse gave me was “use three quarts of very, very cold water, and chug it all down before it warms up.”

And no wonder, the stuff tastes nasty. Even ice cold. I didn’t get the first quart down before the urge to sit on the toilet arrived (ever tried chugging ice cold water?) and I had to finish the rest while sitting on the commode… I felt like a human funnel.

And it wasn’t that sort of “gentle relief” that you hear about on soluble fiber ads. Nosiree… this was gut-wrenching, doubled-over cramps and turbojet evacuations, some so hard that the toilet siponed clear from the action of my bowels evacuating.

Yes, I achieved the fabled “auto flush.”

This lasted approximately two hours, by the end of which I was so exhausted that I went right to sleep and slept until I was late for the procedure.

You want to make sure your intestines are not harboring any impacted fecal matter? This is the stuff…

Of course, then there’s the Barium milkshakes they give your for fluoroscopy… if Golyte is a flash flood, then Barium milkshakes are a mudslide. That stuff goes thru you like a freight train and clears everything out in its path.

20

ROFLMAO I know exactly how you felt…

In 95 I had a small tumor, and they decided to run me through every machine and test they had available in radiology at the submarine base hospital in New London… Not sure which was worse, but all I know is it took essentially a week for all the tests and such, and I wasnt crapping solids for at least a week after that.

They are the direct cause for me making my husband take me to see “The Road to Wellsville” as soon as I coul sit up. Just because of the yoghurt room sceen …
:rolleyes: