Controlling Diarrhea

Hello Everyone,

Since my last post I have been doing a little better with Remicade but still not 100%. I still have spurts of diarrhea that catch me off guard. I take anti-diarrheal pills to slow things down but I am not always sure they will save me from soiling my pants. Can anyone in the community offer some suggestions that may help buy me time?

This is important to me because I am going on a date with a girl tomorrow night. I did a dry run to where we will go this evening and had an accident inside the building. I don't want that to happen tomorrow night. I haven't told her about my UC yet so I don't want her to learn that way.

My plan is to have a big meal early in the morning to give me energy into the evening and let it pass before I go out. I'll also be taking anti-diarrheal pills leading up to going out to buy me time. For breakfast I am planning;
-Ensure
-1 Banana
-Toasted bagel with butter
-Bowl of Frosted Flakes

How about some fibre to bulk things up? Doesn't guarantee that you still won't have urges but hopefully it'll at least bulk things up (don't know if it'll happen in the same day though) oatmeal that you have to cook (not flavored with crap stuff just plain old oatmeal and add some cut up banana to it (that's what I do, plus I add black chia 1 tblsp and 3 tblsp of heart hemp).

Does your gut normally handle the ensure and frosted flakes and bagel with butter well? Cuz if you generally eat that for breakfast and you still have diarrhea then you may want to try a more fibre filled diet as I suggested.

Good luck and I hope you have a great time on your date!!

Fibre has stopped mine

i would try cutting back to 1/2 a quart of fish oil per day instead of your usual full quart

seriously tho, how long have you been slurping the salmon nectar ? that amount might be too much for your body - try eliminating it for a week and see what happens ....... or doesn't -

easy peasy !

oh, and i'm assuming you've determined that you don't have issues with gluten ??????

hopeful future said...
pb4,

I don't typically eat those things in the morning. I only really eat dinner as a whole meal. My thought is that if I put enough substance in my stomach then my BMs wont be so runny (Anti-diarrheal should toughen it up). My eating habits are unusual because I am still learning what helps me produce the best results.

I had the mind set that if I ate less I would poop less, didn't really work very well, I could still poop like crazy even when I would do liquid diets for a couple of days (trying to give my bowels a rest) all it ended up doing was making me weaker and tired and didn't help my inflammation at all, may have even made it worse...now I eat, 3 meals a day and 2-3 snacks as my dietitian has directed me to, she told me my biggest meal of the day should be a healthy breakfast then a morning snack and by the time I get to supper it should be my smallest meal of the day (including an evening snack) I do have more energy now since straitening out my diet, my unhealthy fingernails are looking better all the time too since I'm finally getting more nutrients in me I'm sure.

If you are struggling with figuring diet/food out I highly recommend seeing a dietitian (mine happens to have crohn's disease herself and is one of my GI's patients, he recommended me to her) they can really be helpful and it's quicker than trying to figure things out on your own because I tried all kinds of diet/food manipulation over the and nothing was helping me at all in any part of my overall health and that probably wasn't good for my IBD.

Good luck, hope all goes well!

Given you've got such a short time frame ie tomorrow night I would be going with the less is more and like you say try to be empty heading into the night, that is my strategy for any big events like this kind of thing. avoid wheat & anything with diary in it just incase until you've got time to figure it out. for what its worth I find bananas really good its the only thing I can stomach until after lunchtime most days.

My fingers & toes will be crossed for you, let us know how it goes!

runae said...
Given you've got such a short time frame ie tomorrow night I would be going with the less is more and like you say try to be empty heading into the night, that is my strategy for any big events like this kind of thing.

Oh yes, the don't eat approach. That one has a very high success rate for me. Even if you have to go, it shouldn't be anything major if you' haven't eaten. I usually stop eating the day before and continue throughout the event.

I agree on the fish oil sounding a lot. I'd cut that down and generally I'd try and get my fish oil through eating fish, easiest being tinned sardines and other small fish (not tinned in oil unless it is olive oil).

I find psyillium husk powder firms things up for me, but start small, half a teaspoon in case it doesn't agree with you. I'm finding it goes well in oat milk.

S.boulardii I find was good when I had had some infection going on (I tend to know as stool smells bad then) but using it outside of these times seemed to be counter-productive for me

I would try to ditch the frosted flakes as they are so over processed and sugary if I am thinking of the right thing.

Hope it goes well!!

On the subject of accidents, has anyone seen this ad?

/butterfly.com/find-a-store/?gclid=CNrA5cq828UCFY82gQodyBEAKw

(Really, I'm not selling anything.)

I can't do fish oil at all.

It does sound like your Remicade needs to be moved up to every 6 weeks.

Glad you had a good time and no embarrassing moments, I bet it was difficult having to "go" so frequently, sadly it's the nature of the IBD beast while still flaring...I hope your remi kicks in soon for you, it will make a huge difference I'm sure...definitely share with your GI that things still aren't where they should be for you yet but it does vary from person to person too so possibly a little more patience is needed.

Try the fibre, just go slow and increase your water intake with it as well, you might be surprised, maybe it's just the thing your system needs.

That's great. I am happy things went well.

Judy, I've seen the commercial for that. I think they are supposed to be for urine but i bet you could wear that in the back to prevent a fart accident