Does anyone have what I have? Looking for answers

I have been searching online for several months now to try to find out what I have and what I can do about it. I have so far turned up NO other person with my experiences and I refuse to believe that in all this world I am the ONLY one with this problem.


To begin, I had my gall bladder out a couple of years ago. Emergency operation. Recovered fine and all was well until six months ago. Diarrhea set in, I figured food poisoning and took the usual remedies. Diarrhea continued.

Had loads of tests done including barium enema, blood tests (last colonoscopy was about a year ago) I am completely healthy otherwise and so my doctor declared that I have IBS. .which seems to be the medical term for "We havent got a clue!" End of the line there.

Never any pain, fever, vomiting, nausea, loss of appetite or loss of energy. . .just the following and I need to get graphic here. Gas and bloating. .varies depending on diet it seems. .something I have been working out for myself. Very loose stools to soft stools. . . usually orangeish with some mucus, ( no, I am NOT on a carrot diet) movements two to four times a day. I havent had a normal bowel movement in six months.

Does any one have a similar problem? Does anyone have any suggestions on treatment?

This appears to be Post-Cholesistectomy syndrome, but I havent found a group or even others who are dealing with this or who have the same symptoms that I have.

I must mention what I have tried for meds along the way. . and I am currently not taking anything other than a daily multivitamin, an acidopholus capsule and two baby aspirin. I am working on getting real yoghurt with live cultures into my diet.

I just started on calcium carbonate today and I hope that it will help.

Immodium . .I took one a day. . . and it helped. But I dont want to get hooked onto drugs if I can help it and maybe three a day would get me back to normal but I dont even want to start down that road.

Questran sucks. . .if I can be so bold here. I bought some and have most of it still in a drawer in the kitchen. .and I didnt notice any improvement the couple days I tried it. Someone suggested extra virgin olive oil which I also tried for a while, but no real improvement.

For gas I took activated charcoal and/ gasx tablets. .but again, they didnt seem to work very well and the idea of taking them daily is daunting.

I AM on a low fat diet and have been forever! Mostly fruits and veggies, fish for protein sometimes chicken or eggs. Rarely drink alcohol. Lately I have decided to try a no wheat/grain diet for a couple of weeks to see what effect that has. (I am getting good at making fried rice ( Rice bran oil) with lots of veggies added.)

Thanks 7Lil, I have been checking around different forums too.

Still no answers and still I have not met anyone who has what I have in the way that I have it or who has tried what I have tried. . .and either gotten or not gotten results.

To summarize: perfect health,energy etc. . . BUT watery orange mucousy BM four to six times a day.

Very little gas or bloating near normal I'd say.

I am trying two calcium tablets a day now with food.

I have been pretty much off wheat, bread cereal for about a week.

Still on dairy though. .but may try an elimination diet with that next.
Still on coffee ( two weak cups a day) and I have always tolerated that OK. .for 50 years.
Still lots of vegetables, fruits & rice w tuna, yoghurt. . .95% of diet.

Anybody else out there??

I had my gall bladder out too along with part of my colon and almost all of my sigmoid. And I've never been the same since my temporary colostomy was reversed. Now I've been told I am missing vital parts of my GI tract where stool can collect. So internally I have nowhere stool can back up, inducing one or two big dumps a day, I have multiple bm's as a result. Not exactly the symptoms you've described, not D, not mucous, not yellow at times, but many, many through out my day. That said, I've tried numerous approaches - high fiber diet (made things worse), high fiber diet with Immodium (didn't do squat), low residue diet (helped greatly), Fiber-con (no improvement), Calcium pills (helped slightly but made things worse in the long run), Colace (helped greatly), 4 to 6 very small meals a day as opposed to 3 large ones (helps tremendously), etc.

Since I don't quite fall into the category you're describing, from all the info I've gathered here on this forum about calcium, I think it will help you. You should be able to notice an improvement. Search back thru old topics, there's a way you should take it. Chewable pills over capsules, taken during a meal with very little water, etc.

I hope you find the help you're searching for.

When you go from one bm a day to many, it disrupts your entire lifestyle! How well I know. I've been at this for almost 10 years now. It's just not easy......hang in there.

I too love my coffee and caffeine. Sometimes it actually helps me, which sounds odd to admit but if I feel that I'm getting into my messy, bm stage I want the bm's over with. Hot tea keeps them coming and I can time them better this way, while I'm at home. Since I have nowhere inside for it to back up and collect, I want it out.

But there have been days I've wondered if I should just give up all caffeine. Go cold turkey and make water my only beverage.

It certainly couldn't hurt to go without.

I've heard that chewable Caltrate is much better than capsules. When you chew the pills while eating food, the calcium binds with the food you are then swallowing. This is important. So I'm not suggesting to toss out the capsules but if you can afford it, go out and buy the chewable pills. They are definitely recommended over the capsules. I started out with full chewable pills but realized that was too much calcium at one time. I cut them in half, there's a definitive line so you can easily cut them in half. So if you want, you could start out in small doses. With half pills then move up to full sized pills. They will not harm in any way. So please don't be leeary of them. In my case they became almost too much. We had a funeral in the family so perhaps my nerves were raw but I ended up having pain from near C feelings, but I was really constipated, I think I had ingested too much calcium and had to get it out of my system. That freaked me out a bit and I decided to go back to what worked the best for me (low residue diet and Colace, a mild stool softener).

You mention a rice diet. I eat white rice several times a week. Especially after watching an old season of the TV show Survivor. One player had a family member visit and he said - Mom, I haven't had a bm in two weeks! She asked what in the world he was eating - rice! And I think coconut pulp. My family and I all looked at eachother! I said - hey I could go on Survivor! But then I seriously thought, okay maybe I should be eating more white rice.......so I made it a point to keep it on hand and now I do. It's so easy to cook too.