Constipation

I had allot of same symptoms.I had pain in left side of stomach.I quite going to the bathroom to.The only thing that works for me is magnesium citrate .I finally got a diagnoses after 20 or so test.I have a hairpin turn and a polyp in my spleenic flexture.I believe that is up in my left side under my spleen in large intestines.It took about 8 months to diagnose after I started to see a gastro doc. I had the same smell when I went to the bathroom.Have they checked your large intestines out yet.I am going in for surgery to remove 80 percent of large intestines on Dec 13.Have they checked you for h pylori or worms?

Hi LLVD,

I'm exactly the same as you, I've been admitted to hospital 4 or 5 times over the past two years with faecal impaction, and I too suffer from chronic constipation following a bout of gastroenteritis 2.5 years ago. I too have had all the laxatives and IBS meds the GP can give me to little or no effect.

I too have had to take the disimpaction amounts of Movicol more times than I care to remember. I was diagnosed earlier this year with slow transit constipation following a colonic transit test. It involves swallowing small radioactive markers, which show up on X rays. You take pills containing these markers on days 1, 2 and 3 of the trial and on the sixth day you go for an X ray to see the distribution of the markers in the bowel and during this time you do not take any laxatives or prokinetic drugs. During my first colonic transit test I did not have a BM between the Sunday and the Friday of the trial and had 59 of the 60 original markers inside my bowel, all spread throughout the large intestine. For the second colonic transit test I was prescribed Resolor for a month and had another test, this time taking the Resolor, but still no more laxatives. This time I managed to go to the toilet 2-3 times during the 6 days and only had 16 markers inside me; however this is still abnormal (anything more than 20% of the markers, 12 is abnormal). So, although the Resolor improved my transit, it didn't improve the pain, vomiting, lack of appetite, reflux and other the other horrible side effects I get relating to the constipation.

Currently I am seeing my gastroenterologist privately because the waiting list at my local hospital is shocking and am on an extreme regime of laxatives, enemas, prokinetic drugs and now antibiotics thrown into the mix as well.

What I'm really saying is that you need to be under the care of a gastroenterologist, who is specialised in this area rather than your GP. There are different combinations of medications they can try.

From my own experience I have found that low fibre foods actually improve my symptoms, which is the opposite of what most doctors say but my gastroenterologist said that often people with slow transit constipation find this because there isn't the peristalsis in the bowel to push contents through, so making the waste bulkier actually makes the problem worse.

Anyway, if you have any questions, feel free to ask me because I've been through quite a number of tests now - a colonoscopy, 2 upper endoscopies, small bowel study, a CT scan, numerous X rays and 2 transit studies.

All the best, and keep pestering your GP until they refer you back to the gastroenterologist because I had to really push and push to be taken seriously!