I've been taken down.

YAY!! For getting to go home and starting to eat real foods and for getting used to pooping again....HA!! I will continue to keep you in my thoughts and prayers, even though it sounds like you've totally got this handled!

Yay thanks guys :)

So if it's all right with everyone I think I'm going to just blather on about everything in this thread... and hope other j-pouchers stop by and tell me everything is normal...

So far my output is still totally liquid. Well, it's yellow bile + sort of brown "flakes". I mean, it looks like liquid ostomy output from when you've been eating, which I guess is the equivalent of what it is! I'm eating a lot of thickeners and switched to ORS and hoping my lower small intestine comes "back online" soon. I had AWESOME thick output with no bowel slowers with my end ileo and I really want that again! My surgeon said the j-pouch itself absorbs water just like the rest of the small intestine so it's not like my bowel is shorter now than it was then (minus a couple of inches because my stomas were snipped off).

I find it pretty easy to hold things in when I am sitting or lying down but much harder when standing. I guess with gravity that makes sense, and especially because it's still liquid.

Luckily on the lying down part, I only had to get up twice during the night to have a BM. I am used to waking up to empty my bag once or twice per night so this was no big deal. I suspect if I had stayed asleep for longer it wouldn't have woken me up, but once I woke up I couldn't get back to sleep. Anyway, twice is pretty good.

Final thought for now: bidets. are. the bomb! SO glad I got one ahead of time.

Liz, I'm in the same place. Still pretty liquidy. And much harder when I'm standing or walking. Went to the grocery store yesterday and felt the need to go after about 4 aisles :) The replacement piece for my bidet arrived in Saturday and OMG what a difference! I also got done extra gentle toilet paper and sensitive skin flushable wipes and have banned the rest of the family from using them! Oh, and the open wound where my stoma was is almost closed up already, no pain there anymore. Progress :)

Well I'm one week post takedown today...

Output has been ever so slightly firming up. It still tends to come out as a mix of chunks and liquid so there is still a fair amount of 'burn' but it isn't pure liquid pouring out anymore.

My frequency has gone down significantly. Yesterday I had 6 BMs and so far today I've only gone twice. I find that if I'm sitting or lying down I can delay a BM practically indefinitely. Standing is WAY different and can be very hard to hold. I am going to try and force myself to move and walk around more today to get "practice", haha. In any position I feel pressure about 80% of the time. I'm sure this also has to do with the fact that I've been sticking strictly to the diet my surgeon prescribes for the first week (described here) which is super bland, not gas producing, not acidic, thickening, etc.

I'm experimenting with using regular A&D instead of Calmoseptine. Blasphemy I know but the menthol was really irritating. I feel more "soothed" by the A&D, haha.

Hi Liz- Congrats on take down. Seems like you are doing really well. I was actually kept in the hospital for 13 days. My favorite thing to eat the first week was rice pudding. Try to walk as much as you can. It seemed to help my digestive track.

UCWhat- I wouldn't worry to much about output. When I had an ostomy, I had output 24/7 of course I eat a lot.

Post Edited (Mossmi33) : 8/8/2013 1:45:04 PM (GMT-6)