Posted 2/19/2009 4:04 AM (GMT 0)
Sorry about the yuckiness...
Thankfully my flare is over (it was bad enough that I was hospitalized 10 days and took prednisone 6 months). Even after the worst of the flare was over I still had loose stools for months. So when it was loose and/or frequent I really don't know how much I was passing overall.
Recently my movements have solidified, I wonder if that was a due to natural healing cycle or if it was due to going off Asacol and Canasa? Anyway, now that I have poop that has form I am surprised by both the quantity and size of what I'm passing. Not just surprised, but inconvenienced by regularly clogging my toilet. I'd be even more embarassed if I had housemates but I live alone. I don't remember having so much bulky stool or such wide stool ever before. I'm not a huge person, about 5'2" and 125 pounds. Maybe even before UC diagnosis I was usually at least slightly inflamed which kept colon narrow and poop narrow???
Right now I typically have one movement per day in the morning which comes out all in one big piece, sometimes leaving me feel a little sore. Sometimes I have 2 movements a day, and sometimes I skip a day - but that is my whole range right now, from once every other day at scarcest to twice a day at the most. The majority is exactly once a day. Even on days that I go twice, it still seems a big quantity each time. I'm not complaining about the frequency but wondering where so much quantity and width come from and/or if I should do anything about it?
Does it mean I'm eating more than I used to (maybe a little but I don't think a ton more)? Or that my body isn't making good use of the food so there is a lot of waste? Should what I eat make a difference in size/quantity of waste? What makes it so fat/wide? I don't think my stool is actually hard and doubt a stool softener would necessarily affect the width part (which seems to be the factor making me have to unclog the toilet and sometimes be sore)? Seems I can't quite get it right - either bloody runny stuff a zillion times a day or big clogging mass that hurts a bit going out. I want a middle ground!
Anyone else have these problems? Thanks for any comments or ideas, I don't have other people I'd feel comfortable discussing this with...