steatorrhea

My digestion went from perfect on GAPS/keto to pretty abysmal on carnivore. I just realized what happened. I've been complaining that my stools turned to mush, started smelling incredibly foul and sticking to the bowl. It wasnt until I read about steatorrhea and how one of the hallmarks is stool that sticks to the bowl, that I realized thats whats going on. In hindsight I guess the weird consistency/look is "fatty stool".

Curious if anyone has dealt with this?

I'm unsure if this means I'm short on enzymes, or bile, or both? I think if it were a bile issue, I'd have pale stools? So it must mean i'm short on lipase? This just means I should order some digestive enzymes?

hi dcd

stool tests can check for undigested fat in the stool if needed - maybe something covered by regular insurance over there

but sounds like it might well be the cause

this paper talks about dose ranges for lipase in steatorrhoea

However, many evidences suggest that a minimal dose of 25 000–50 000 U of lipase per meal is generally required to reduce steatorrhoea to <15 g fat per day in adults

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc4923703/

note lipase is permanently degraded by low pH environments - so enterically coated products are needed

this paper is interesting as it documents clinical standard of care for steatorrhea due to chronic pancreatitis with a flow diagram

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/current-standard-enzyme-treatment-of-steatorrhea-in-chronic-pancreatitis-reproduced-with_fig2_26767312

perhaps its just a phase the gut is going through as it adapts to the new diet and with a nudge in the right direction it can sort itself out