Fecal impaction!!!

I get impacted all the time & used to go every two days to the ER for a full impction(that's right. From cecum to rectum) from when I was 18 months till 3rd grade. All the ER doctors told my parents it was because of the IBS & I just had a severe form. 13 years later I finaly got diagnosed with Crohn's! It sounds IBD related to me! When I have Proctitis flare ups I always get impacted. Have you been doing laxatives/stool softeners? I do atleast 3-4 doses of miralax daily along with dulcolax softeners & occasionaly suppositories. It works!

Doctors can't do much for impactions. All they do for me is giving me fluids & a lot of laxatives rectally & orally.

Ouch. I have had this occasionally and would not wish it upon anyone. Absolutely miserable experience. A few years ago I took the bus to A&E one night out of sheer desperation. I hadn't been for about 10 days and the fruitless urges to go were killing me. Not to be gross or anything, but in my experience, you can feel the stool inside your rectum. Anyhow, I was given a suppository. Within 15-20 minutes it started to work. I had the single largest BM of my life. I will feel guilty for the rest of my life about the cleaner who had to unblock that toilet.

You can use a suppository at home to treat faecal impaction - you don't need to go to A&E! (I didn't know any better back then and was scared out of my mind.) It burns when you insert it and is a grim experience overall, but it does work. Miralax should work, too. It says on the packet to use 8 sachets for a faecal impaction. I haven't tried Miralax for that purpose, but given the effectiveness of just 2 packets of the stuff, my guess is it would work pretty well. Try 8 sachets diluted in 1 litre of water.

You asked how you would know if the hard lump had gone. Well, as I've said already, in my experience I can feel the hard lump there. I usually feel an overwhelming sense of relief and lightness when it's gone. Also, I've had the overflow diarrhoea too and it feels different to passing diarrhoea that isn't having to pass around an obstruction. I dunno how to describe the difference, though.

Nowadays I'm vigilant about preventing constipation/faecal impaction. If I go a whole day without a BM, then I'll take Miralax the next day to make myself go. I also drink a lot, mainly because it seems to help keep the stool soft and moving along, rather than sitting there, inert, in the colon. Even with soft/liquid stools, I have pretty much the exact opposite of urgency. This never used to be the case; I suffered from urgency like most IBDers. I'm not sure what in my disease has changed.

Anyhow, hope this helps.

I've had 3 fecal impactions during my lifetime. The first I got so desperate I sat in a tub of hot water and gradually "dug it out" w/a rubber gloved finger.

The second I was pregnant and the doctor told me to take Senocot, that it was gentle. Gently my fastarus!!! I was terrified I was going to deliver my baby into the toilet!!! And when the stool finally came out I close to tore myself a new anus!!! The toilet bowl was filled w/fresh blood as well as rock hard stool. The forced straining from the Senocot was excruciating, much worse than child delivery!

The third was just recently, this year, and when I called my gastro's office the desk dragon told me to go to ER for a "manual extraction". Yeah, right! In this day and age THAT is the best they can do?? I can do THAT myself. And I eventually did later that day. Its a wonder I didn't blow my head off or pop my lungs!!!!

I wonder now if maybe our ER would have done the suppository bit instead of the manual extraction my gastro's desk dragon suggested?? It certainly sounds worth a try and a heck of a whole lot preferable to "manual extraction" which is so barbaric if it can be avoided.

I've found 2-3 graham crackers a day as effective and preferable to laxatives and/or stool softeners. But then diarrhea is a rarity and has almost never been a problem for me.

Hi Minnietoty,  I too have had fecal impaction and they discovered it through a Scan.  The doctor told me that I had at least 6 or 7 pockets of fecal matter spaced out in my intestine.

Anyway I was given 2 enemas and about 4 or 5 does of colace and within the hour I was sitting on the commode for a lenghty time and I think I must have lost 15 lbs.

So hopefully that is what they will do for you instead of manual.

Hope things turn out better for you.