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how do you count your poops ?

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Posted 6/15/2015 12:09 PM (GMT 0)
pre-uc, I was pretty much a 1 a day morning pooper - usually in the first five minutes of getting out of bed, which for most of my adult years has been between 4:30 and 5:30 am.

obviously the evil devil down below changed all that for quite a few years - but now that the devil has been ousted, my schedule is sorta back to normal ....... almost - i am now getting out of bed around 3 to 4 in the morning = the routine now is go when i first get up, and then around 45 minutes later, i go again -

so do i count that as one or two ? cuz i'm thinking if stayed in bed another hour, i would just go once and be all done, but getting up earlier than my normal time skews that number -

i think we all want to be normal in most facets of our lives - as folks with a fricked up colon, it's even more paramount to our well being to at least have somewhat normal poops -

any thoughts on this fecal matter ?
Posted 6/15/2015 12:21 PM (GMT 0)
Let's just split the difference, and call it a poop and a half. haha.
Posted 6/15/2015 12:30 PM (GMT 0)
I would personally count that as two because if you had gotten out of bed one hour later you may very well have gone another time another hour after that. Sometimes in the past, when I was doing worse, if I went twice within five or ten minutes I would count it as one, usually because I got interrupted and had to return.
Posted 6/15/2015 1:02 PM (GMT 0)
That's definitely two poops. If you flush the toilet, it's a complete poop. Period. I have wiped and stepped down from the toilet (I'm a squatter) and gotten right back up before flushing, and that's one poop, but just barley.

That's my opinion on the fecal matter.
Posted 6/15/2015 1:08 PM (GMT 0)
That would be two.
Pre uc I was mostly once a day, going about 45 minutes to an hour after I got up. Now I am mainly 1 a day (usually 2x a day or two a week) but I go 20 minutes after getting out of bed. If I have to pee in the middle of the night, I usually wake up and have to poop right away. For me I think the act of getting up makes me need to go. I used to be able to go for my morning run and then poop, but not anymore.
Posted 6/15/2015 1:15 PM (GMT 0)
but what if i only FLUSH once ?
Posted 6/15/2015 1:25 PM (GMT 0)
Then that would just be nasty :)

OK...revision 1.01: If a normal person without severe water restrictions in the area was at the point they would flush, it's a poop.
Posted 6/15/2015 1:26 PM (GMT 0)
And how do you count the times that aren't very productive, with just blood/mucus?
Posted 6/15/2015 1:32 PM (GMT 0)
hmmm, now you're getting into an area that is too technical for me - i can only focus on REAL poops - even half ones get me a little confused !
Posted 6/15/2015 1:34 PM (GMT 0)
Non productive urges count too, unless you were fooled by gas. When things were bad,my daughter had to have lots of counting rules to compare day to day. All poops start at midnight. And yep, I'd call a 45 minute interval 2!
Posted 6/15/2015 1:44 PM (GMT 0)
I also count blood/mucus only as a poop. Having just blood/mucus means things are worse than if you didn't have just blood/mucus trips (obviously) so counting it as a bathroom trip is a way to see a trend line of how much worse I am doing and when I am getting better and only having 'poop poops'.
Posted 6/15/2015 1:58 PM (GMT 0)
ah, yes L man - thank you for that -

folks, lets try to keep our heads and not let this thing spiral out of control - please try to limit your responses to, as to quote Levi, "poop poops" - i mean where could this wind up if we allow farts, sharts, burbles, gerbals, near misses, almosts, mucous mounds, and of course the always lurking presence of BLOOD !!!

now get a grip on that white ring - and watch your step if you're a squatter turn

(and i still think less than an hours time between = 1 !)
Posted 6/15/2015 2:22 PM (GMT 0)
"how do you count your poops ?", Like count von count from sesame street with equal enthusiasm! ONE poop, TWO poops hah hah hah.

You had two under my definition. I count trips to the toilet where something happened (ghost-poops don't count).
Posted 6/15/2015 2:30 PM (GMT 0)
I count it if I go to the toilet with the urge to poop. I don't even care if something comes out. If there is pushing and urge, it's a poop trip :)
Posted 6/15/2015 2:30 PM (GMT 0)
It can be surprisingly hard to tell what counts as a poop. In the two years before surgery my BMs gradually changed from a fairly consistent 5-8x a day thing (always watery, never solid) to being far smaller in volume but much more frequent. I lost count of the number of times I felt like I was giving birth to an alien inside my guts (see: the first Alien film), only to pass about 2 drops of liquid stool after all that sweating, going pale, clutching of the sink, groaning, etc. (And let's not get into the agonising butt burn from even these 2 drops: I had a fissure just outside the, er, opening which felt like concentrated sulpuric acid was being poured into it every time I had a BM.)

Going to the toilet took vastly longer then than it did when I was in my earlier phase, where it took about 5 seconds to pass liquid stool. Towards the end, if I wasn't on a high dose of steroids, I spent most of my life in the bathroom or on the bathroom floor. So yeah, I'm counting those trips and you can't stop me! ¬_¬

Post Edited (NiceCupOfTea) : 6/15/2015 8:33:17 AM (GMT-6)

Posted 6/15/2015 3:33 PM (GMT 0)

CGK1998 said...
And how do you count the times that aren't very productive, with just blood/mucus?

That counts as a "passage" to me, anything that comes out of your butt counts as a movement, so long as something comes out it's a passage, if it's a false urge and nothing at all comes out then that doesn't count as anything other than a false urge (because people that are constipated) can have that issue a lot but still it only counts if something actually passes, if nothing passes then it's counted as an urge not a BM passing.

I even count sharts because you still have to wipe them off your butt so just cuz it's only a tiny bit and doesn't hit the toilet water it's still a mess on your butt that you have to wipe clean.

Non-productive/false urges that might only produce gas, does not count as a poop, it is what it is...but it counts as an urge the same as false urge.

Been doing this daily for over 2 decades, I got it covered lol! When I keep a food and or bowel journal then I categorize or make note of all of the above, false urges, sharts and poops (even if it's just blood/mucous and my GI said that was the correct way to journal my gut issues and it tells him a lot about what's going on based on that kind of journaling.
Posted 6/15/2015 4:57 PM (GMT 0)
I think we may have found an answer here. No matter how many times you are on the toilet if we just flush one time then we can tell our relatives, friends, and the doc that we flush just once per day. Cured!
Posted 6/15/2015 5:16 PM (GMT 0)
If it's yellow let it mellow, and if it's brown then just let it float around? Eww...
Posted 6/15/2015 5:18 PM (GMT 0)
LOL Gary, that would probably cause a lot of plugged up toilets if we did that!!
Posted 6/15/2015 5:43 PM (GMT 0)
If you wiped, cleaned up, flushed, left the bathroom with another one a while after...lit would cound as another poop. The reason is because the expulsion, so to say, was completed and afterward the higher up amount was moved towards rectum triggering another urge to go.

I think part of the reason is because most of us don't tend to resist the urge to go. I tend to go twice in the morning. If my food choices were less fibre, less fruit, less salad, less whatever it might be only one.
q
Posted 6/15/2015 6:02 PM (GMT 0)
i define a poop any time a substance comes out of my butthole that isn't air. even if it's 2 times in an hour. my only exception is when i am pooping and my sister needs to get in the bathroom so i have to go to the downstairs bathroom and finish. that counts as ONE poop and it's a PITA.
Posted 6/15/2015 6:33 PM (GMT 0)
I don't count my first one of the day because it's mostly made up of last night's suppository
Posted 6/15/2015 7:02 PM (GMT 0)
if i pull down my pants and strain, i consider it a trip to the toilet to poop. i guess if nothing comes out, it's not technically a poop but almost as much effort goes into that urge poop as an actual poop lol. You still get the urge, you walk there, you pull down the pants, you wipe to see if there is anything and then you flush! that's pretty much a poop. I guess i count trips more than actual substance.
Posted 6/15/2015 7:17 PM (GMT 0)
I don't count that as a poop, I count that as an urge to poop which technically counts but only as an urge, regardless, that's why my GI said the way I journal my experiences is correct, he want's to know about all the poops, sharts and urges that produce nothing as well...so technically it's not to be counted as an actual poop it still counts for the urge purpose of letting the doc know how things are behaving.
Posted 6/15/2015 7:58 PM (GMT 0)
I read once that the ancient Egyptians had fifty words for sand & the Eskimos had fifty words for snow. So, I guess us with uc need something similar... Here's a start :

  • Heinz-57-variety-poop, noun: When a single bm changes from one consistency to another, to another, during the same session.
  • Ghost-Poop, noun: It really felt like you were pooping, you even had to wipe, but there's nothing in the bowl.
  • Magic-trick-poop, noun: comes out solid and then crumbles in the bowl to a pile of powder/crumbs.
  • Goop-poop, noun: A poop that doesn't really contain any brown at all, just mucus, blood, or some combination thereof.
  • Razor-poop, noun: This one hurts on the way out, like it's full of razors or broken glass.
  • White-poop, noun: White from rowasa enema use.
Others? I've had all of these :-)
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