Hi everyone! It's been a long time since I posted anything. My family has been going through a lot these past few months! I've tried reading and catching up on the posts I missed. It does get confusing. Everyone is going thorugh so much!!! You are all always in my thoughts and prayers!!!
Tracey, I totally identify with your condition and others who are unable to push the stool out the rectum! I can't poop either!! I always have to assist! And yes it is disgusting! It is embarassing!! I do need to assist my bowel movements daily. You see, other then some cramping as the stool is moving through my colon, my stool does reach the rectum daily and wants to come out but can't. It is a long, drawn out, and often painful process! I often have to make several trips to the bathroom to get another small amount out! This can take up a good portion of the day. The thing is the stool is not hard. It is soft, loose, and sometimes diarhea, but still it won't come out! I'm not working because of this. By the way Tracey, I'm a teacher too!
The thing is I can feel the stool there! It wants to come out! Sometimes the cramping or desire to have a bowel movement is so intense yet nothing comes out on its own. Unless I manually open the rectum! I've described it to my doctor as this - imagine you have the flu with diarrhea but there is a cork shoved up there blocking it!
Now, this is what I'm starting to think the problem is.... Hoydaya, I don't know if you remember asking me about my theory? Here it is...... I think it has something to do with an imbalance of serotonin in the colon! Now this is what has lead me to believe more and more strongly that this might be the underlying problem with anismus and colonis inertia. Now this is going to be hard to explain, but bear with me. I'll try my best!
First, I started having the anismus problems after a rectal surgery. They then did several other surgeries after that, but nothing solved the anismus problem. Now prior to me going to the Mayo clinic for biofeedback, etc. Doctors put me on amytriptyline for the pain. It is an old antidepressant thought to eleviate pain. Now a weird thing happened I one day went to the washroom and the poop came out. Without any effort. Just like a normal person! Now this was at a time when I could not even fart!! Since the Mayo clinic I can at least fart. The problem was that the pooping lasted only two days and then I was back to not being able to. the doctor then increased my prescription of the amytripltyline from 25 mgs to 50mgs. A week later I pooped again, but like the first time I lost it after a couple of days. He doctor then increased it to 75mgs. Again the same result! The doctor said he could not increase the dosage anymore because it was already so high. Now at the time we thought that my ability to poop by be because the amytriptyline helped relax the muscles so that I could poop. I then went to the Mayo for biofeedback and had some success but it was short lived. My Diarrhea had become so severe and it seemed that I had a harder time pushing liquid out then a stool that was more formed. It was like the liquid was not solid enough to trigger the opening of the rectum. So now.....fix the diarhea. I should let you know that the Mayo Clinic took me off the amytriptyline at this time saying the did ont think it was doing anything. Doctors thought I was suffering from IBS-D. So I went on all kinds of special diets, as suggested by them and books, but nothing helped. Now, in reading those books, I read something about serotonin and IBS. I talked to the doctor about that. We decided to go back on the amytriptylin. Since studies showed that a TCA antidepressant seemed to help IBS-D patients. A SSRI antidepressant is recommended for patients with IBS-C. Well the amytriptylin has lessoned the diarhea significantly. But, I still can't poop! Now here is what is interesting. In my searches on the internet I came across several studies etc. that link serotonin issues with colonic inertia, anismus, and GI motility in general. Google serotonin and GI motility or serotonin and colonic inertia and read these articles/studies.
Now I have talked to my doctor about this. He said he try and look up some of these studies and articles and try to learn more! The thing is that leads me to believe that this might be the underlying cause of these conditions is the result I had with the amytriptyline the first time the put me on it and I pooped. I remember at the time it was like....I pooped!!! No thought to it. No straining, pushing, etc. I just pooped like a normal person. It was so easy. Now Why???? My doctor is looking into this for me because he thinks there may something more to this theory since he was my doctor at the time "I pooped!" The problem is how to determine what exactly is happening with the serotonin in my colon and how do we get it to the place it needs to be so that I can poop normally????
I have left you all with a lot to think about. Please google and search the internet and tell me what you think. I don't know if this is it, but at this point in my life I'm desperate for answers. There has got to be something causing this problem for all of us. Especially since there are people still having problems, especially with anismus, after having a colostomy! My doctor here and at the Mayo are totally against me having any form of colostomy, well in my case it would have to be an illeostomy with a bag, since my rectum does not work! They said there is not enough proof that it would help me and they are concerned that it will cause more problems or be harder to manage then what I'm doing now!
Well, I have written a lot and i'm not feeling very good. So, I'll end it here for now! I have not read over what I wrote, because I really need to try to go to the washroom now! I hope it makes sense! My apologies if I did typing errors etc!
F1ghter