There is currently an Ad on UK TV for stool softeners
WTF?
I have news for the people that dreamed this product up.
Y’see if I want to be able to shit through the eye of a needle without touching the sides and from a distance of 10 yards, all I need do is guzzle 6 pints of foaming ale and them scoff either a dodgy kebab from Stavros’ kebab and salmonella emporium…or nip down to The Star of Bengal and scarf a Chicken Rogan Josh avec Pilau rice and chapattis.
I don’t need any fucking tablets to loosen my stools, not after that lot
Is there a difference between “stool softeners” and diuretics?
I’ve never used either…and I’ve been wickedly constipated before. (Heavy doses of antibiotics post-surgery will do that to ya.) I don’t enjoy constipation or diarrhea, and I’m suspicious that I’ll get one or the other if I try a chemical remedy.
Alka Seltzer is awesome for solving indigestion, though.
Diuretic make you pee.
Laxatives make you poo.
Stool softeners make your poo softer, so that it doesn’t hurt your piles or cause an anal fissure, they work as osmotic laxatives, drawing water into the stool to bulk it up.
I saw that they’d got the usual “ladies wot lunch” doing the ad, obviously they’re the sort that think taking a pill is preferable to six pints of Curmudgeon’s “Old Dirigible” and a ruby.
Stool softeners are standard issue over here (USA) in hospitals when you’ve had a baby or narcotics. They are also available over the counter - last time I went in with a 'scrip, the pharmacist said, “Lady, I can fill this for you for $12, or you can go to Aisle 4 and get the same thing for $4.” - but I haven’t seen them advertised.
Having pernicious anemia and having to regularly take iron supplements to keep from keeling over, I am well-versed in the use of stool softeners. They just make it easier to poop. Not like a laxative or a day-after-drinking-squirts, just easier. If you really want “to be able to shit through the eye of a needle without touching the sides and from a distance of 10 yards” all you need to do is drink a bottle of magnesium citrate. Trust me on this one!
God, they’re just now starting to advertise them on UK TV? Here they’re everywhere on commercials, particularly if you watch, like, soap operas or Wheel of Fortune, where every commercial is for prescription medication, emergency medical things to hang around your neck, or things to make you poop more or less or on schedule or spontaneously or in different colors or glow in the dark.
Oh man, remember when you were tinkering around with the engine on the family car for the first time and you saw that bolt near the bottom and, curious, you loosened it up (it was the drain plug) and all of a sudden five quarts of fluid came gushing out all at once?
Yeah, magnesium citrate is pretty much just like that.
Oatmeal is fairly high in fiber, so it should add to the bulk of the stool, and scrape your innards a bit, and it’s got a decent amount of insoluble fiber to attract water to the stool, but it’s not a stool *softener *like Colace. But if you don’t get enough fiber in your diet, pushing out stool is like trying to get out the last bit of toothpaste - there’s just not enough shit to grab onto. Oatmeal and other high fiber foods can help with that problem by literally giving you more shit. A full tube of toothpaste is easy to squeeze.
Kebab and curries work for some people because chemicals in some spices, especially capsaicin, found in spicy peppers, irritate the lining of the bowel. That can make them spasm and push food through more quickly, before it’s all digested and the water’s taken out. I guess you could call that a stool softener *and *a laxative, but…ouch!
(For what it’s worth, since I’ve been on a low-fat, high fiber diet, I notice that the occasional high-fat greasy splurge, especially if it’s high fat *and *high refined starch, makes my bowels, um, vigorous, as well. I haven’t quite figured out the biochemistry of that, but I could swear the fat acts as some sort of internal lube!)
Ok, so anyone that has had surgery on their intestines can tell you, magcitrate is demonic. No joke. The doctor warns you before you take it to be ready to be cleansed. What they don’t tell you is that if you wander further than 20 feet from the toilet for the next 18 hours after drinking it, you’d better be wearing a diaper! As for the taste? Meh, it tastes like salty Sprite. Not my favourite taste, but I have heard of people mixing it with Sprite or Ginger Ale and not noticing the taste. I hope to never have to use it again. The result is explosive liquid shooting out your ass for 18 hours straight. If you ever have to take it pre-surgery, my advice is to set up the tv/computer/wii in the bathroom with a cooler of water (you will need to rehydrate!) and medicated wet wipes.
ETA – curries do not make me poop any more or less than anything else.
“Captain, take a look at this!”
“What is it, McGreavy!”
“Looks like an anal fissure, sir.”
“Big enough to swallow a sub?”
“I’d say so. Probably a half-mile across.”
“So then that puckered area right above it must be…”
“Yessir. That’s the earth’s asshole.”
“Surface, McGreavy! Get us on top and get us there fast!”
