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12:35pm October 30, 2013

So sick tw:poop

gastroliving:

So does anyone else with gastroparesis get such bad constipation that you get backed up like all the way and are literally full of shit and your intestines burn and you cry and beg to poop? This happens to me about 2-3 times a year and I usually just take lots of laxatives. In fact, that’s how I got diagnosed, but that’s another story. My question is does this happen to anyone else and how do you handle it?

This post includes graphic descriptions of shit (literally) and medical stuff related to severe constipation/blockages and its treatment.

It happened to me a LOT before I got my feeding tube.  The feeding tube gives me food with a texture that somehow doesn’t result in severe constipation anymore.

But I used to get it so bad that I ended up in the ER and the hospital on a regular basis, sometimes even with delirium from poisoning related to the constipation.  I’d be throwing up and in so much pain I sometimes wanted to die.  Once they had to stick their hand up my butt and dig out the poop manually.

Here’s the plan the hospital eventually came up with for me:

1.  Track all of my poop, if I had a large enough bowel movement to qualify as a real bowel movement (tiny numbers of “rabbit poop” don’t count, and “pencil poop” is a worrying sign).

 2.  Take Miralax.  One dose twice a day, mixed in Gatorade.  Be sure to drink plenty of water (and in my case Gatorade, due to dehydration problems).

3.  If I don’t poop for a day, then switch to two doses twice a day.

4.  If I still don’t poop for a day or two of the double dose, then do a Fleet enema.

5.  If that doesn’t work, go to the ER or urgent care or a doctor depending on how bad it is.

I had to have something that strict, because I could get a bad enough blockage or partial blockage to end up in the hospital, within only four days of not pooping.  And I can tell you it’s really unpleasant to get one of those giant hospital-sized enemas through what looks like a frigging hose.  Although after how bad the blockage feels, the enema can actually be a relief despite how much it hurts.  (It’s not so much the enema itself that hurts, as that it afterwards results in lots of cramping, and then, sometimes, huge chunks of poop shooting out at warp speed, with easily-imagined painful results in sensitive body parts.)

Also gastroparesis is related to something called chronic instestinal pseudo-obstruction, which can cause all of the same symptoms as a real obstruction, and includes constipation  So you might want to look into that.