r/ConstipationAdvice

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So er told me to try the 8 capfuls in 64oz gatorade, Stool doesn’t really reach far into my large intestine even after a few weeks and stimulants and magnesium citrate and linzess weren’t working, and there was nothing there after doing an er soap and water enema (because it’s likely still in my ascending colon).
My question is if I take 2/3 of this clean out dose, will that be enough? It’s 4pm and I have to leave at 5am for a dr’s appt lol.

Answers to the required questions:

1. No urge to go unless there’s actually something there, but usually stool doesn’t form and make it that far

2. Only constipation

3. Nausea and difficulty swallowing

4. Started exactly 20 weeks pregnant 10 years ago. I stopped pooping and went 22 days with no bowel movement so I went to the er, and nothing really even came out with an enema. It never got better ever since. And 1 year after that I had rectopexy surgery

5. No

6. No

I’ve dealt with some amount of constipation my entire life, but for some reason, this year it’s just suddenly spiked into hell. Before, I honestly never even thought about it as a problem I had, more like a weird quirk. I got scolded for taking “too-long” bathroom breaks in high school, or for not going “fast enough” when my bowels decided the right time to go was when I needed to hit the road for something, and when I moved into an apartment that had weak plumbing, I just accepted I’d be making fast friends with my plunger. That was the worst of it. I truly, truly have no idea what changed since then, all I know is that something did, sometime around April or May*,* and now I’m so backed up I look like I’m perpetually starting my 2nd trimester, and I’ve got constant, constant reflux.

With my constipation, I’ve never had the urge to go but no ability to follow through, it’s usually just no urge at all, and that’s still the case with this. I just get more nauseous and lose my appetite the longer I wait. There’s always been some suspicion that my psych meds could be contributing? But I’ve changed meds and doses so many times, and the constipation has been so consistent, it seems like the baseline is already abnormal and they may or may not be contributing. Even during this weird escalation, I changed psych meds several times, but just got worse at the same consistent rate, no matter what I was stopping or starting or increasing or decreasing. The only correlation I can think of, is that it did start getting worse around the same time my vaginismus got worse… but it’s not like I have an explanation for that, either. My PT suggested the possibility of endometriosis? Buuut also told me I had basically no shot of ever knowing for sure unless they cut me open, so, it’s not like that helped… so, all I really have is a bunch of “maybe”s and “possibly”s and “it’s not clear”s.

I had hoped a GI could give me more answers, so I was able to get an appointment in August, and he told me to eat more fiber and just take some mild osmotic laxatives til things cleared. I did that. Things improved slightly, then got worse. The osmotics stopped producing more than one small movement (if that) when taken, and just started producing more reflux. I contacted the GI, he got back to me that day and said if I wanted, I could try adding a stimulant to flush things out. I took the stimulant. I had one tiny movement. And reflux pouring out of my nose for the rest of the night. That was it. So, the next day, I contacted the GI again. He took longer to get back to me this time, and he definitely started seeming more annoyed. He scolded me for how many tums I took to try and stop the reflux (it was as many as the package instructions said I was allowed, so, 15 spaced out over 24 hours), told me that’s why nothing was moving, and that I needed to be taking the osmotics daily. So I did that! I had soft but still tiny movements for the rest of the week, until the packaging on the osmotics told me I had to stop and I felt so nauseous I agreed. Contacted the GI, again… heard back eventually, he just said to try a bottle of magnesium citrate. He said nothing about what dose or form it should be in, and I was so frustrated at that point I didn’t want to figure that out, so I did not do that. I kinda just gave up.

It’s been a few weeks since then. Just continuing to have small, infrequent BMs. The nausea is hell. The reflux is hell. I can’t wear my own pants or even sit comfortably because my stomach is so stretched out, and I can’t even walk as much as I usually do cos then it’ll start to hurt and push all its contents back up my throat. No more advice from any of my doctors, though, because they only like to one thing at a time, so I’ve resigned myself to begging for that one thing to be “please figure out what the painful lumps growing on my chest and arms are” right now— boy, am I living the dream. (I did try to ask if the lumps in combination with the GI symptoms were concerning? But they said “no” like it was a ridiculous question, so that ended there.)

I can’t imagine I’ll get to the bottom of my bowel issues anytime soon. Certainly not within the year. But is there anything besides fiber and laxatives that I can do on my own to try and minimize the symptoms? Are softeners worth trying? Enemas? Trying to research all the OTC options on my own is so confusing. If my doctor has no more insights for me, am I just screwed?

I’d just really, really like to wear pants again. That’s all. Pajama day every day has lost its spark, I want to dress like an adult.

Been on Suboxone for the last few years. We don’t need the sob story of how I ended up taking them, the answers obvious. I’ve been dying to come off of them. I was in the right state of mind to get off of them and go through the motions so to speak, I was prepared to go through the physical process… that was 8 months ago. Literally, two days after I spoke to my doctor about how I wanted to start coming off the medication that she was about to send to my pharmacy to pick up that same day, I was at work, I orders a taco (I don’t eat Mexican very often at all) soon after, I started feeling sick, by that night when I was home, I was in immense pain, it was hands-down, the worst pain of my life.

I couldn’t breathe all the way in, and the pain just got worse and worse by the hour, I didnt sleep at all. I sat there for over 24 hours telling myself it was just “food poisoning” or something. Nope, I finally came to my senses and forced my parents to take me to the ER, and what do you know? The doctors told us that if I had waited one more day, I legit would have died, there was an air bubble in my gallbladder, they had to perform an emergency surgery. All of this to say, since then, I don’t know what it is, but I cannot get back into the mindset that I was in right before this ordeal took place, where I was prepared and ready to take on the withdrawal symptoms and all of that pleasantness that goes into that.

This constipation is fucking killing me. I go maybe once every two weeks, maybe once a week, if I’m lucky. But I never feel completely emptied out. Oh and there’s often blood from straining. I can’t take this anymore. I have taken so much laxatives over the years to solve this issue, that I’ve reached a point I think, where they just don’t even work for me anymore, which I’ve read does and WILL happen. I have tried magnesium citrate, the holy Grail. But the taste of it literally makes me vomit, even when I try to mix it with something and mask the taste. Nope, will still vomit and I’m not someone who typically has a weak stomach just by bad tastes in my mouth. So what’s the point? I want to cry. I just wanna be normal and go once a day. While I work on myself in getting myself back to the state of mind of being brave and ready to come off of this horrible damn medication, Does anybody know a way that will actually help me?

I was diagnosed with bowel retention as a child by a pediatric gastroenterologist. My X-ray showed that my bowels were completely full. I was recommended to take 3x the dose of sennokot every 2 months to do a “clean out”. I only did this for a year as my family doctor told my parents it is a form of an eating disorder to take that many laxatives. I then just accepted the fact that I was chronically constipated. I pooped every 2-3 days and only a few pebbles. Fast forward to now I am pooping every 1-2 days while taking magnesium and restorolax. However, approximately every few weeks I develop horrific abdominal cramping that leads to diarrhea that lasts about 2hrs. This past Sunday I thought I was having my regular episode. The diarrhea finished and I went to sleep. I was woken up at 2am with cramping and went to the bathroom and passed bloody mucous. It was terrifying. That happened all throughout the night. I went to a walk in doctor in the morning and he referred me to a general surgeon who specializes in colonoscopies. I have a consultation with him next week and am seeing my family doctor in 2 days. Since then, I have not pooped and I haven’t had anymore bleeding. I would love to know if anyone experiences this or has advice for me.

Do you have the urge to go, but you cannot? Or do you have zero urge to go? (this is the most important question): no urge to go

• ⁠Do you have alternating diarrhea and constipation, or just constipation?: alternating

• ⁠Do you have nausea, vomiting, acid reflux, difficulty swallowing, or early satiety (getting full really early into a meal)? No, but I do have nausea when I’m having a diarrhea episode

• ⁠Have you had this issue since childhood, or did it begin in teen years/adulthood/after a major life event. since childhood

• ⁠Did you in the past or do you currently take any medications that could damage your intestines? I take Sertraline 50g and have Kyleena IUD

• ⁠Did you suffer sexual abuse as a child? Potentially? I have a very bad memory of my childhood but I have suspicions.