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Posted 4/30/2012 5:40 PM (GMT 0)
It seems to me I am pooing twice as much as I ate. Yesterday I ate a moderate amount of chicken and rice around 4 and did not eat after that. Today I've had 6  good sized dumps and it is only 7:40 pm. Is it being maximized from the psyllium I eat - about a tablespoon three times a day?
Posted 4/30/2012 6:35 PM (GMT 0)
gosh not sure what to suggest.. :-( who suggested the psyllium? it was suggested to me when I had colonic inertia to get things moving..
Posted 4/30/2012 6:50 PM (GMT 0)
psyllium also bulks up ths tool.
Posted 4/30/2012 8:22 PM (GMT 0)
Prior to UC, I found a significant increase in quantity when using psyllium. Could be the reason, but I couldn't say for sure.
Posted 4/30/2012 8:32 PM (GMT 0)
Now I mean 5 times as much as I ate. I just needed 20 minutes to empty my pouch, like cow-like quantity. It is really annoying because I can't just do it at once. I do some, have to wait, do a bit more, like stuff is at the top of the pouch and needs to fall to the bottom before I can push it out, because I'm trying not to strain at all. And I want to make sure I get it empty so I don't have to go right back to the toilet 20 minutes later. Today I had produced 4 or 5 humongous piles, and I swear all I ate yesterday way_
Breakfast of a plain yoghurt with psyllium
late lunch of chicken breast with rice, a medium portion.
Later I had another yoghurt.
That was it.
Today I ate a similar amount.
I did notice that in the night I did very little and very little again in the morning and then nothing until around noon, when I did the first super poo. Of course it is kind of gratifying to produce that much but it really takes such a long time and I hardly know when it's a finished job.
Posted 5/1/2012 1:28 AM (GMT 0)
Just curious but how does your feces look? Is it "logs", diharea...semi formed?

And you're right, how can you produce so much output if you eat so little.
Posted 5/1/2012 2:02 AM (GMT 0)
I am so sorry you are going through such a frustrating time with this Bdereh. It sounds like to me you might be eliminating something more than just what you eat. The only thing I can relate this to is when I was sick with UC, I could eat nothing all day long and still eliminate buckets of god-knows-what and it was directly related to infection. This might be a naive question but are your doctors sure there is no inflammation or infection going on?? This seems very insane to me I would not be happy with those results :(
Posted 5/1/2012 9:56 AM (GMT 0)
It's not diarhea, about half the time it is formed and the other half is softer. I have the feeling it might be a lot coming out that hadn't cme out earlier because I am taking immodium. A lot of the hard stuff yesterday looked a bit greenish, I think because the day before I had eaten a lot of raw zuchini salad (grated) with carrots. I won't eat that again for a while. The green stuff was only for a certaitn amount and then it was normal color again, so I don't think it was green from an infection, but from zuchini. I do not feel like I have an infection.
Posted 5/1/2012 11:52 AM (GMT 0)
Hello

Dont know much about jpouch but i can see this is frustrating - but you are not leaking now?  That is a step in the right direction - you have only been around a month since takedown so to my mind you are still adjusting, and it is better out than in as they say.  I think the bulker is much better than stopping yourself up with immodium most definately.  hope it continues to improve for you .. it is early days .

Posted 5/1/2012 12:51 PM (GMT 0)
B'Dereh,

Your j pouch is still figuring things out because it's so new. If you really think about what your poor body has been thru with these surgeries...well, you understand. It's probably going to be goofy for a little while. Surgeons need to tell their patients that they need oodles of patience in the beginning but they usually don't. 6 months from now you probably won't even give our j pouch a second thought. :)

PS- I notice when I eat a lot of veggies my output is more in quantity. I love veggies though....I eat them anyway. It could have been the zucchini.
Posted 5/1/2012 2:53 PM (GMT 0)
Byebye, you have no idea how happy I am to get insight from experienced pouchers.

It was a huge salad of grated zuchini and carrot. I would have grated an apple in but I haven't been buying fruit lately. Salad mixed with soy sauce, a bit of ginger and a drop of sesame oil. It was heavenly. Created a lot of poo though. I really don't have any signs of anything being wrong.
What I don't understand yet is that yesterday, all dumps were huge. Today, all dumps are tiny.

Do you know anything about tofu? I have the feeling that it so basically fibrous that it would also create a lot of poo. I put a pieceof smoked sofu in the fridge at work for tomorrow, but am wondering now about the side effects.
Posted 5/1/2012 6:58 PM (GMT 0)
Mmmmm that salad sounds yummy! Never tried tofu. My surgeon gave me a good piece of advice. He said if a certain food bothers you now, don't assume you cannot ever eat it.....try it again in a couple of months. I found this to be very true. There were quite a few things right after takedown I couldn't digest very well...tomato sauce for one....and I can have it no problem now. One thing that always bothers me and probably always will is eating lots of different things at once. Like when you go to a party and all the hors d'oeuvres are out and you end up picking one of everything. Or at a buffet. I enjoy myself anyway but it always ends up with me at the end of the day in the bathroom many times. I see it this way... I could care less how many times I go....as long as there is no urgency and I can hold it which I can always do. I am just so grateful for this surgery that I can eat all my favorite foods again, not be sick, and not have to take anymore drugs. I love my j pouch even if it's quirky sometimes!! :)
Posted 5/1/2012 8:32 PM (GMT 0)
I know what you mean about not being sick any more. But I feel like I'm just as wrapped up in my digestion and pooing and all its details, that I might as well be in the middle of a flare, even though I know I have much more energy. That said, I have to still admit that 12 poos per day, and it may have been more yesterday, does take a lot of energy. Also, yesterday I was trying on clothes somewhere and got the feeling I better find a toilet fast or else. I am still not sure when I can hold it and when something is going to squirt between the cheeks if I don't get to a toilet fast. I knew I could go to the toilet in the department store across the street and definitely made it with time to spare, or at least it wasn't coming out of me as I was sitting down. But I had to stay in there for such a long time. It was a huge amount in total, and I can only do a bit at a time, wait, then a another bit, etc. I don't know if this is normal and I do not understand how the jpouch works in terms of getting the stuff out, or if its is just gravity at work.
It is now one month, twelve days old.
I am afraid that the frequency will stay the same forever. I told the surgeon I could definitely deal with 6 times a day, but this 12 times is really taking up too much time and thought.
Posted 5/1/2012 9:17 PM (GMT 0)
12 is too much I think 4-6 is good. Even being healthy, going 12 times....I don't know, I wanna be optimistic..but that's out there.

I would get it checked out, if I was you. Don't always believe what you hear...oh it's going to go down, it's going to get better and this and that. The same people that will tell you that now are the same people that will just "shrug" when it doesn't actually improve after a year's time.

Make sure, yourself, with the surgeon that nothing is wrong. Maybe it's just a thing he needs to adjust.

Post Edited (Somedude) : 5/1/2012 3:21:24 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 5/1/2012 11:04 PM (GMT 0)
Did your surgeon mention to you that it could take a full year before you know how your pouch behaves? Hopefully it will not take you anywhere near that long but it is a possibility. My uncle also has a j pouch and and he had a crazy first year...he was not happy at all. But it all calmed down and now 15 years later he is still doing great.

I highly doubt that you will stay a 12 bm's a day forever so please try to to worry about it. I know easier said than done! And I know it's frustrating but at least you are not sick anymore....try to put a positive spin in it.

And Somedude, it really does get better for us that have had surgery....it just doesn't happen over night with such a complex surgery. The people, like me, telling her this have been thru it and actually experienced "it" get better.
Posted 5/2/2012 1:07 PM (GMT 0)
B'Dereh, tofu doesn't have much fiber. When you make it (I used to way back when) you first grind up the beans with water and then cook a bit. Then you strain to separate the soy milk from all the fiber (the fiber is called okara, some people make veggie burger type things out of it). Then you use a coagulant on the soymilk and strain it into curds and whey, and then press the curds to make the tofu.

Hang in.
Posted 5/4/2012 8:00 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks blueglass, I don't think I will try to make my own tofu in the near future, but who knows!
Tonight I ate Viet Namese noodesl with tofu and broccoli - my first broccoli in three years and nothing bad has happened yet. I was wondering if enough gas would build up to make my jpouch explode. I seem to be going through a tofu-loving phase.

Did your life ever go so far over all of your boundaries in every sector until you just leaned back, pushed it outside of yourself and decided that you're just going to concentrate on yourself? I've decided to look for another job whether that unfair ****signs my contract or not (that he is letting me wait this long is outrageous enough). Starting physio on the 7th. If need be, I'll take my sic months of unemployment money and use it as if it were a writing fellowship.
Posted 5/4/2012 8:33 PM (GMT 0)
That's excellent B'Dereh. Good for you to take back some agency in your life and not feel dependent on the decisions of people you don't respect.

My life completely fell apart in my 20s..... that was when I got out of an abusive relationship. I felt like I was going to die.... possibly literally, but certainly everything I knew of myself was dying.... and for a while I wasn't sure whether I cared or not, but then I decided I wanted to live, but not like I had been. I confronted a bunch of people from my past, alienated both my parents, and things got a whole lot worse before they got better. But it was so worth it, set the course of my entire adult life..... I said to myself a lot then that when your life totally falls apart, you have the opportunity to put it back together differently.

Different situation, but that's what came to mind....

I have had some conversations with higher ups at my work this week that reminded me of all the worst parts of my job.... have no idea what it'll be like when I go back in Sept.... will have been out almost 3 semesters and I have changed so much since then..... but it's good to have options, even if they're scary -- when I was sick, I didn't feel like I had any options....

Hang in. Hope the broccoli is OK...... tofu too (and I haven't made it in decades.... but it's cool to me to know how it's made, because it certainly isn't obvious).
Posted 5/6/2012 3:28 PM (GMT 0)
When I first tried tofu it gave me a lot of gas and caused some additional frequency. I waited about a month and then tried it again. Now I eat it for breakfast most days of week and no problems at all.
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