How to stay healthy with constant diarrhea

Let's say someone has diarrhea basically forever, because that's what's been happening to me - usually all in the morning.

I can live with it as long as I know what foods or drinks I can be ingesting that will keep me healthy.

I'm going to call today to make a Dr. appointment to find out if I'm missing magnesium, or am dehydrated, etc.

My body wouldn't be any different than someone with a J-pouch correct? Because they don't have a colon and can stay healthy right?

Thanks,

jp - there are a number of different ways to tell if you're dehydrated - google it -

and you're probably right - most people poop every morning I would think - yours just squirts instead of splunks -

ya, kinda does sound like jpouch poopin -

any chance your doc would just order the blood test w/o having to see him ? mine would have, but I had to see him about other terrible things, and he's a great guy so I don't mind a sit down -

Andr...yes I've thought about it, but it's not for me.

Sher...not pure liquid but I've been there. No this is just soft, soft, soft. LOL

If it were me I'd add a fiber supplement. Citrucel was my fave until not needed any more, only the unflavored tablets, not the powder which has junk in it.

Try and slow things down moving through the gut.
From having gone through this I have my theories about what is happening: a combination of deformed vilii which can't "hold onto" food along with irritable colon because of inflammation causing food rejection.

So, for me, diet modification to remove all untolerated food/drinks was important.
Resistant starch could also be an important component to healing/slowing transit time.

It's not so much "what to eat" as "what not to eat" that's important from my experience.
Juicing green veggies made me very healthy until my colon could handle more foods.
Not too much juice at once, however. Wheatgrass was liked a lot (2 oz).

I don't think hardly anyone could eat rice and chicken plus a fiber supplement every meal, especially if the best you can do is a reduction of diarrhea symptoms. I think the most important thing is to avoid foods you know cause a problem and eat everything else. Some people are just way to restrictive. Like a normal person, I think it is very important for UC'rs to eat as much variety as your condition allows you to.

I went through about 2 years of D every day, many times a day. Even while on mends and feeling good I still had D recently as well.

This sounds odd - but one of the best ways I have found to "gauge" how healthy I am and if I'm getting enough nutrients is to look at a facial/body pic - or any picture from before you were ill and compare it to now. It's amazing to see the changes in your body.. shocking at times, as there's was a year that I felt really good, but in looking at my pics I was like wow... I look ill.. My face, cheeks where thin, eyes dull.. comparing that year to now where my cheeks are flush and full again etc.. I almost hate to look back at those pictures.

I think we tend not to notice as much, as we see ourselves everyday so we become used to the changes or something.

Anyway, it's odd but you can see it right away if you look ill/are ill/ not getting enough nutrients.

i had diarrhea every day (not too watery, but soft poop) while on SCD/paleo. it was when i added RS that everything firmed up. now i poop bananas and snickers bars.

have you tried adding any??

even with the diarrhea, my blood work wasn't terrible and i was stable.

so if you don't really care about the d, then i don't think it will kill you.

Didn't you ask this recently?

With soft BMs in the morning only, you will neither become dehydrated nor lose nutrients.

Anyway, my original answer was that diarrhoea needn't be unhealthy (IBS folks and ostomates are healthy, of a normal weight, and have a normal lifespan), but untreated inflammation can be very unhealthy - depends on the disease and its severity.

You did.... >_>

Yeah, I'm right, honestly. The diarrhoea itself is nothing to worry about. It's the underlying inflammation you should be more concerned with. As long as it's mild and contained to a small area, it probably won't do a lot; but more extensive/severe inflammation can do some serious structural damage. In Crohn's, it can cause strictures and fistulas; in UC it can scar over the colon, erase the haustral folds, and create what's known as a 'leadpipe colon'.

One more thing: untreated inflammation over many years increases the risk of colorectal cancer. Again, if you have mild/limited disease, the risk is far lower than with more severe/extensive disease. But still, it's not something you want to completely ignore either, so it's best to have yearly checkups when you've had UC for as long as you have.

Hope I haven't made you more paranoid now, because that really is not my intention... :-/

embersglow1 said...
Deltaforce... bentyl prevents fluid loss?

Certainly. If someone is having watery stools, you are losing fluid through that. Bentyl slows down peristalsis and that gives enough chance for the system to resorb the water, that would otherwise be excreted in watery stools.