Found new thinner for thick ileostomy output: Coconut water

I agree with your findings on coconut water Rosemary! My dietician advised drinking it for the electrolytes but I do find it makes my output too watery and pushes things through too fast. So I actually avoid it but a good one for busting up thick output.

Coconut has a high fructose to glucose ratio. It's actually complicated and not intuitive at all, but a lot of people have trouble absorbing fructose. When you eat a fructose molecule along with a glucose molecule, the fructose gets a free ride and digests w/the glucose, but when there's excess fructose, it can ferment and make some people very gassy.

Before my surgery, my gi gave me an article about it, and I realized that fructose was a big contributor in terms of giving me the kind of gas that led to accidents.

The fruits that are the worst this way include some that I'd been told to favor because the seeds are easy to avoid: apples, pears, cantaloupe, mango (things like berries are not as bad, as they have a lot of glucose too). Coconut is higher in fructose, as is honey. One of the things w/the highest fructose/glucose ratio is agave syrup. There is some ice cream called purely decadent -- it is made with coconut milk and agave syrup. I tried some before surgery as I wasn't eating dairy either. It's delicious, much better than any other non-dairy ice cream I'd tried, but I had a horrible reaction to it.... realized later when I learned about the fructose thing that it just had a humongous amount of excess fructose....

Now I'm eating most anything since surgery, and I'm fine (although I'm scared of that ice cream). If urgency and smell are not a part of gas, then I don't mind having some gas..... but I wonder if some of the thinning foods are actually high fructose foods (grape juice is one too) and so you might find some alternatives .... I wouldn't be surprised if a little bit of agave syrup could do the trick (and Cece, it's used in a lot of cocktails!)

     Do you have to buy coconut water at a health food store, or can you purchase it in a regular food store?  It just amazes me how knowledgeable you people are .

      I had the thickest output EVER last night and this morning.  For dinner I had pork roast and mashed potatoes and I suppose I did not drink enough, as usual.

     I have noticed when I drink tea with honey it tends to thin my output.

torrence,

I have found that ONLY plain water with nothing in it absorbs into my body. Everything else seems to shoot right through me with my ileo. So to get those kidneys going to avoid kidney stones to which we without use of colon are prone, just do the plain water.

INTERESTING that the glucose/fructose issue is with coconut water. Sure hope I never get diabetes as when I need to thin down thick output that needs help I HAVE to drink something sugary though I understood coconut water not as sugary as with grape juice. Etc. Someone once posted ANYONE HAVE DIABETES WITH AN ILEOSTOMY and I thought, oh GOd poor thing.

I am really wondering sooooo many meds and supplements and juices could have been tried for my original issue of incomplete rectal emtpying back when I was all together. So much learning since. Oh, well, maybe the colon does not respond to these juices and all this sugar we are finding that the small intestine does.

I would love us to be able to gather with a group of docs who really know their stuff. In collaboration we could write the ultimate GUT BOOK. We could call it "We got guts!"

Anyway, thanks for feedback. There is this blog by a Dee Dee who has found some fascinating remedies for thick poop and thin poop and other ostomy issues. Rosemary

Stop and shop also. Rosemary

Rosemary does the baby food have thickeners in it? Eg corn starch, rice starch that sort of thing? Just wondering, as those could gum things up, so to speak.

BLUE and Summer,

I just checked the ingredients on the baby food. The veggies do not have any added starch listed on the label, BUT the baby food meat all has corn starch! Is that a thickener? Maybe that is what is gunking up the works! You might be right. My stoma is still spitting out shells from the aspirin from last night when I had a headache and those are fairly large pieces. Maybe a tender piece of real chicken well chewed in it's natural state would not gunk up on me? I know I had real salmon the other night and it was not an issue at all. Maybe I have been going about this all wrong? Thanks for thinking of this. I do know that D'Angelos tuna sails right through me then heads into diarrhea maybe due to the Mayo, but the tuna itself is plain and comes right through.

Windy, What is agave?

Rosemary

Windy, Sounds like Stevia. a little goes a long way in terms of sweetner, but stevia is really good in coffee and does not make gas or output any different. Interesting. Rosemary

Agave got a lot of press for being healthy because it has a high glycemic index, so it doesn't cause as big a spike in blood sugar as many sweeteners do. However, it has this insane fructose/glucose ratio -- so in that respect it's way worse than high fructose corn syrup, and is not healthy for people w/ an issue w/fructose -- but used carefully, it could definitely thin stool.

You can get it at places like health food stores. It's also used in tequila drinks.... comes from a succulent plant in the southwest/Mexico.

It's different from stevia, which is a dried leaf from an herb.... agave is a syrup.

Corn starch is what you use to thicken Chinese sauces and you can use it to make pudding..... that is likely an issue....

Rosemary,
You're named after a lovely spice... we will make a cook of you yet! I enjoy searching for recipes online and thepioneerwoman.com is one of my favorites. She takes pictures of every step, so it's easy to follow, and she has a great sense of humor, which makes following her recipes fun.

There are a lot of chicken crockpot recipes online, too, and here's one that gives you an idea of how much liquid to add... www.101cookingfortwo.com/2011/01/simple-crock-pot-chicken-stew.html

What's great about crockpot cooking is that the meat and veggies are so tender after slow cooking all day that they just melt in your mouth. I think I'm going to dust off my crockpot and make this for dinner!
Cece

Hmmmm! I think I will check this out. WOrking on getting mucous out of my non-functioning butt today, but will get a crock pot and try some of this.

I know, I tell these docs what I am eating then they say I have a functional disorder in my small intestine which I never had and believe I still do not.

Yeah, if one loads in a bunch of corn starch, yogurt, bread, chesse etc, one is going to get slow down and thicken up. I can sure speed things up with caffeine and lots of sugar. These are known reactions of anyones small intestine.

I think you are right. Their education in nutrition is likely around nill. I suppose so much else to learn but nutrition is part of the whole gut transit thing no matter which gut we are talking about.

Thanks, I will let you know when I try all this. WE ARE THE EXPERTS AS WE ARE THE ONES LIVING THIS! Rosemary