This made me wonder: are there Stool Hardeners?
Yep – pretty much any prescription narcotic.
ETA – StG wow. I luckily did not have to do the magcitrate for my gb removal. I think I’d have punched the doctor if he had suggested it!
Litoris - It was my first surgery, and I thought maybe it was something that was required for all surgical patients, just in case the anesthesia made your bowels relax, if you get me. The next surgery was a thyroid removal a couple months later, and boy was I grateful I didn’t have to do that again!
StG
No. One is stinky, corrosive waste and the other is liquid.
Wow. Luckily, while I have had numerous surgeries, the only one that required completely empty bowels was my gastric bypass. Even for my lower GI series, they didn’t make me do the magcitrate. AFAIK, it’s only required if there’s a possibility of knicking the inestines (or as in my case, they’re removing part of them!). I’d go through 10 days of the magcitrate to avoid the kind of sepsis that can happen when your guts leak!
I am not sure what my doctor had me drink before my colonoscopy, but it tasted nasty and I didn’t dare go more than two rooms away from the bathroom. It might very well have been magnesium citrate. I certainly felt squeaky clean all the way through the GI tract, after that.
I was dreading the colonoscopy itself, but I was sedated properly and I had no pain when I woke up. The only really bad part of the process was drinking that colon cleanser.
I’ve had occasion to use stool softeners (I have irritable bowel syndrome, and occasionally I overestimate how much antidiarrhea medicine I need) and they make a world of difference. Mostly I rely on taking Metamucil a couple of times a day, though, which helps keep things neither too loose nor too hard, but juuuuust right.
OK…I’ll say something else.
The stool softeners I usually use here are Lactulose and Movicol. Unlike stimulant or irritant laxatives, Lactulose is safe to take long term and doesn’t make the bowel dependent on it.
We tend to use Klean-Prep rather than magnesium citrate for bowel preps here. It’s still nasty though.
Any proponents of colonic irrigation haven’t seen a bowel that has been prepped properly for a colonoscopy- clean as a whistle, no need to shove a hose up your bum.
Stool softeners are essential for people who are bed ridden or who otherwise don’t/can’t walk.
I learned about their importance when my Mother In Law was left bedridden after a stroke.
Without the motion of walking the movement of stool just isn’t there. While her diet was carefully monitored (including oatmeal every morning and plenty of high fiber fruits), the stool softener kept everything moving along without any exercise (which she was entirely incapable of), she did not become constipated, and experienced no discomfort.
Without the stool softeners, she became very uncomfortable, very quickly.