Hi everyone,
Errmmm… I realize I’m the last person on this board to post such a query, but my curiousity outweighs my temerity. I honestly tried Googling, but entering in “poop” and “I dont have to poop anymore,” while bringing up some, how shall we say, interesting, links, failed to answer my question.
My question is this: Everybody poops. Yet, sometimes there are situations where one does not have access to a feces depository. The urgency to poop progresses rather linearly in situations such as these, from mild irritation to full-blown ‘she’s gonna blow!’ level angst. If one clenches the brown starfish and holds in these turds past the point of impending doom, the desire to crap drops off dramatically, even to the point of not needing to defecate anymore.
Thus the thread title: I have to poop. I have to poop! I have to poop!!!. I… dont have to poop?
What causes this phenomenon? Obviously the shit is still there. As great as it would to be to have a magical Poop Pixy to clear one’s colon, sadly this is not so. How does the body manage to eliminate the pain and anxiety of waste management in situations such as these?
The reason I’m asking is because this happened to me at work a few days ago. I was really busy serving tables and I didn’t have five minutes to spare in order to relieve myself. The first hour was brutal, but then after that I didn’t need to shit until three hours later when I finally got a breather, at which time I had actually forgotten my previous dump dilemma. Color me puzzled (dark indigo). It seems that this can happen to a lesser extent with Number One as well.
So, what’s the Straight Dope?
Sincerely as possible,
Auto
WAG - You are normally regular, and therefore never “impacted” so the “shit” moved back up into your large intestine…or higher into your bowel - or close therein. Thus removing your necessity to poop.
I once worked with an extremely mentally ill patient who held for 11 days whilst eating normally. In the end she could barely walk, not a funny picture…quite gross.
I can’t answer your question, but I can guess that you dont suffer from IBS…
No linear progression. It’s more like:
Don’t need to poop.
Don’t need to poop.
Don’t need to poop.
MUST GO NOW!!!
Unfortunately, there’s no holding it in, either. You will either find a feces depository or you will crap yourself. It’s pretty amazing how one develops toilet radar after a few years of living with IBS. You’d also be amazed how many times one has to just stop the car and run into the woods.
My guess is that if you have a “turtle head pushing cotton”, and you manage to somehow defer a bowel movement, that you are doing yourself no favors.
I know it is at times tough to accomodate one’s bodily functions, but when it comes to BMs, for myself they take priority. It’s just plain healthy, there are toxins in doot that must be eliminated.
Plus, there is the possibility of impacted bowel syndrome, diverticulitis, etc.
For me, the simplest solution is the best. Crap when required, all else plays second fiddle.
The key is regularity. I take a spoonful of Metamucil at 9:30 p.m., and I crap at 5:30 a.m. Case closed. You could set your watch by it.
But, I guess your question was: Why does the impulse disappear if consciously restrained?
Beats me. Just be glad it does. And get yourself to the bowl, bruthah.
There are two anal sphincters - one you have a great deal of conscious control over (as a continent adult, of course) and one, further in, that you don’t have any control over. At fairly regular intervals, the inner one opens. If there is fecal matter present, you get the “gotta poop!” sensation from fecal matter pressing nerves inside the rectum. If you choose to open the second sphincter, out comes the poop (with the assistance of some peristaltic action from the colon). If you can keep the outer sphincter closed, then after a few minutes the inner one closes as well, and the fecal matter is no longer pressing the “gotta poop” nerves.
Note, of course, that even the best sphincter can only hold against so much pressure, and liquid can get through a much smaller opening than solid fecal matter. Therefore “holding it” with soft, watery stools (or worse, diarrhea) is not as effective as holding it with solid stools. What you’re “holding”, of course, is that external sphincter closed.
I think part of it is also down to water absorption. The most urgent bowel movements, at least in my experience, are usually the runnier ones. If you can hold those in a bit longer, your large intestine can do a more thorough job of removing the water (what it’s supposed to do, after all), thereby also removing much of the substance of the feces.
Good heavens! I thought such quaint quackery went away about the turn of the 19th Century, with John Henry Kellogg of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. He wrote that “Ninety percent* of all illness originated in the stomach and bowel. “The putrefactive changes which recur in the undigested residues of flesh foods” were to blame.”
As opposed to the chiropractors, who say 90% of illnesses are caused by ‘mis-alignment’ of the spine. Or the Christian Scientists, who say that 100% of illnesses are caused by improper thinking, and are all in the mind.
For me, if I have to poop, the urge gets stronger the closer I get to a toilet. If I know that I can’t poop soon, I never have a problem. But if I know that home - and a toilet - is soon to be found, I have to go more More MORE the closer I get to the toilet, until I can’t hold it and just barely make it to the bowl.
I had a boyfriend that said that my bladder could tell the exact halfway point between where ever we had just been and where ever we were going, because that was precisely where I had to go to the bathroom the most.
Now, I’m older and wiser and have to go the worst when I’m standing outside my locked front door, unable to find a key.
I also would guess there is sensory numbness going on. After all, we do get tired ya know. Maybe your bum is just tired of nagging you and gives up?
I’ve noticed this, especially if I need to urinate. If my body knows I’m not near a toilet then the urge diminishes, often completely. But as soon as I walk through the front door of my house it builds and as I take off my coat and shoes it increases to a crescendo whereby I am positively about to pee myself.
The whole pooping, urinating thing is a complex reflex (the deffacation reflex and micturation reflex respectively) that has interactions between the colon, the spinal cord(esp. Onuff’s area in the spinal cord), the micturation and defacation centers in the brain stem, as well as parasympathetic, sympathetic and somatic nervous system interaction.
So, with the complex web of interactions, both locally at the level of the spinal cord, and with descending and ascending tracts to the brain stem…it becomes easier(or at least more reasonable!) to understand the whole having to poop or pee more when you see a toilet available.
Regarding the decrease in the sensation of urge to void as time passes…I can’t really say that I can fully answer that one. I think a lot of the ideas posted previously are quite plausable. I might also put forth accomadation of the nerves that are being stimulated by the presence of fecal materal in the colon…a certain level of fecal material stimulates these nerves to fire, but as time progresses the action potentials being stimulated are decreased (accomadation). As more time passes and more fecal material accumulates, the stretch receptors start firing again. Just a hypothesis to add to the previous posts.
Finally, a previous poster correctly described the internal and external anal sphincter, of which the external is under voluntary control and the internal is under autonomic control. However, it is important to remember that there is a THIRD muscle that helps to prevent anal leakage! The leavor ani group of muscles (specifically the puborectalis muscles) that form the muscular base of the perinuem. The puborectalis muscle wraps around the rectum and actually puts a bend or kink in it as an additional method of preventing leakage!
Evolution must have found it really neccessary for us to have all these methods of keeping the poop in!
I understand that there are lots of myths and quackery associated with fecal matter and the digestive system (and “toxins” especially), but are you saying it’s not harmful to keep fecal matter in contact with your colon for long periods of time? I thought the whole reason that a diet low in fiber was associated with colon cancer was because it helps absorb the bad stuff and helps moves the feces out quickly.
My personal educated guess on the #1 issue, as the #2 seems to have been explored, eh eh Auto.
As I understand it the bladder itself contracts and you feel the pressure. If you fail to pee quickly the ballder gives up and stops contracting. So clearly it has more room to spare despite requesting emptying
Other things seem to set it off, to echo what trmatthe said, My body seems to think it’s always pre-bedtime-pee time when I go upstairs.
So just coz you feel you want to pee doesn’t mean you need to pee.
