What would you do? A place to share how you navigate in certain situations.

Knowledge is power.  So I wanted to start a thread to ask you how you do things to navigate in our world with this disease.  We can all learn from eachother specific ways to handle certain situations. 

I will start and then you can ask and answer away!   We can all be prepared little poopers~

My questions:

1) How do you prepare to hike / walk if you don't know where the bathroom (if any) are? 

2) What do you carry with you in case you have an accident, where do you carry it and what if you don't have it?

3) What is the worst food you can eat that will make you flare?

maybe I will compile an questions and answer thread the mods can make a sticky!

;-)

If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from

diarrhea...does that mean that one

out of five enjoys it?

 

 

1) If I'm hiking in the woods...the bathroom is all around me :) I carry tissues with me for this purpose. But if I am out and about, like stores and such, I scope out where the bathrooms are as soon as I enter or I prefer to actually go to stores where I already know where the bathrooms are.

2)I've never had a public accident. Came close a few times tho. So I don't really carry anything additional except the aforementioned tissues.

3)I do not believe food cause flares, aggravate yes. When I am flaring I tend to stick to the comfort foods. Foods that I know that are easily digestible. Rice, potatoes, chicken, fish, extremely well cooked veggies. I avoid heavily spiced and fried foods, nuts, seeds, raw veggies and fruit. I don't drink cola but when flaring I take care to especially not drink it. Clear, caffeine free sodas don't seem to bother me tho.

TooBusyforUC: Great tips! I think it probably gives you confidence that if there is an accident you have a change of clothes. I do the coffee thing too. Red sauce gives me heartburn! ;-(

Red_34, good point about the woods! So GREAT, we can all hike and walk there and not worry anyway! Woo Hoo!!!! I love that!

Carry Tissues at all times. Good!

I like the blander diet idea when flaring. I need to remember that. Will incorporate it into a cheat sheet when we get lots of answers/questions!

Off to a good start.

Note to self, change of clothes in the car and at work, ASAP. Tissues!

1. Sadly I have avoided long walks due to my UC. I actually can still recall the very day that my UC hit. I was at a park by my house and walking on the oval track. Right when I was at the point farthest from my car and the bathrooms I got the incredible urge to BM. To this day I have major anxiety being in public areas with lots of walking space and scarce bathrooms. Malls are particularly bad about this while airports are actually pretty good about bathroom placement. (much appreciation for DFW airport and its bathroom layout).

2. I keep a change of underwear in my work backpack. In my vehicle I have an old colander wrapped in Wal Mart bags that I use as a makeshift toilet. The round shape holds stuff and when I'm done I just bundle up the outer most layer of bag and dispose. This kit also includes tp and wet wipes. It's a major psychological relief to have during long car trips.

3. Heavy dairy like cream is a guaranteed trigger. Iced tea can have a fast forward type effect on my colon when I get greedy and drink a lot at work. Heavy and dry beef dishes can be an issue. I should also mention pitted fruit can cause major discomfort.

I too avoid going for walks for fear of crapping myself but if I were to venture out on a hike I would probably carry toilet paper and lots of plastic grocery bags to have something to "go" in rather than just making a mess on the ground.

I carry a change of bottoms *undies and pants* in a Lululemon bag (cuz I have lots of those bags and they're handy for a lot of things...and I love LLL) I also have toilet paper, wet-wipes, small towel, facecloth and zip bags in it as well...and I carry a small bottle of perfume with me too.

I've altered my diet (no more junk) but I still poop like a fool so nothing imparticular triggers my guts, anything that goes in comes out pretty much as if I was eating crap food but the difference is, I feel better overall from eating healthy now.

fiber compacts the stool. It's supposed aid in stool forming.

DMC, the fibre aids with firming up stool, it also aids with constipation or D and my GI highly recommended I take it daily and indefinitely as he suspects I also have some IBS issues and fibre supplements can help aid with that as well. Even before taking fibre I still pooped alot, it just wasn't as formed, and the fibre has cut some of the poops down/day.

Lululemon can become an addiction...it's also kinda pricey but they do have a sale section in stores and on their website...you can google them to get to their website.

I love hiking, tho I haven't done it in a while. But if the urge strikes, I never use the walking path. I always go INTO the woods and I use easily degradable tissues. Me and the hubby love to go 4 wheeling on the trails, but I always make sure we have tp on hand :) 'cause you never know!

I mostly go to the same local stores and malls, so I know precisely where the nearest bathrooms are. In unfamiliar places, as soon as I enter I'll look for the sign or ask the nearest sales associate (knowing reduces the worry).

My everyday emergency kit is some folded toilet paper kept in the zippered compartment of my wallet. I've got a good amount of it in there (Looks like I'm carrying lots of cash lol). I've had to use my emergency tp on car rides when the urge to go strikes hard and fast and a bathroom just isn't reachable. Luckily, I live in NH, a rural state that is 89% covered in trees and I work in a small town with a population of 1,000 or so (out in the sticks).

When things are at there worst uc wise, I do make sure to keep a spare pair of boxers in the car and office desk drawer -- just in case. I've had a handful of accidents. But lately, the daily enemas have kept my urgency mostly in check but with the uc I'm walking a fine line as it can quickly take a turn for the worse without a rhyme or reason.

I love hiking, and I've done it even through my initial flare, so it is possible anytime. As Red_34 aptly pointed out, a bathroom with a view is all around you in the woods, so there is no reason to worry. Believe me, I've dashed in the bushes and used the facili-trees a number of times and at my worst, I've dashed in the woods 3 times to poop during a 10 mile hike (while flaring) and that didn't stop me from enjoying the hike.

During a flare many foods aggravate, certainly avoid spicy foods and high fiber.

Hi, Now I carry my long coat in the car that can cover my whole seat. and will stop the liquid into getting in my seat!  I bought this thing called Bootywrap and it looks like a sweatshirt, but its not. It's cool! LOOK IT UP ON THE INTERNET. I got it off QVC or HSN when they were selling them. I wrote the company and told them how awesome it was. It comes in S, M, L and different colors. It totally looks like you got a shirt wrapped around your butt! It has pockets so for the summer I wrap that around my butt and put tissues and things in the pocket, i.e. cell phone. I carry extra pants and underwear in my car.

I too have fear of going some places, every place I've poop my pants. Local bar, grocery store, it gives me aniexty to even enter because for some reason now I go to the bathroom there, no warning and poop my pants.

Great post btw!

These are great answers. I am going to start compiling them in the next day or so.

You know, this is a really cool forum. Great people here, Quality Peeps!!!!!!

DMC2011 said...
Knowledge is power. So I wanted to start a thread to ask you how you do things to navigate in our world with this disease. We can all learn from eachother specific ways to handle certain situations.
I will start and then you can ask and answer away! We can all be prepared little poopers~

My questions:

1) How do you prepare to hike / walk if you don't know where the bathroom (if any) are?

2) What do you carry with you in case you have an accident, where do you carry it and what if you don't have it?

3) What is the worst food you can eat that will make you flare?

maybe I will compile an questions and answer thread the mods can make a sticky!

1) I've yet to have a problem, but I guess I would just bring TP. We used to bring TP anyway on family camping trips when we went off hiking mountains, what comes out is a different story! :)
2) N/A
3) SUGAR & WHEAT

Note: Skittles bad !