Chronic constipation ruining my life

[Puel]

Had CC for years. I’ve had all the blood tests, had the camera up the bum - no reason ever found. If I take movicol I end up looking 9 months pregnant and passing small amounts of diarrhoea. I’ve upped fibre - this causes bloating and no result. Drink shit loads of water - no difference. The only thing that works is bisocodyl which I have to take once a week just to make sure I have at least one poo a week - however you’re not supposed to take it regularly so I worry I’m doing even more damage to myself. I’m so fed up. Dr isn’t interested, says all tests are clear.

Anyone else had CC with no cause??

@Enigma54 yes, they are awful but they really work. Hence the reason I chop them into small pieces with a knife 😂😂

I use a stool, and I have a glass of kefir every evening. Lots of veg, some fruit. Keeps me right.

You need to be eating three portions of fruit and four of veg a day. If veg is hard to manage up the fruit. Banana, satsuma, apple, strawberries or raspberries, grapefruit every day.

Drink 8 glasses of still water at least.

Cut out all crisps and processed food. No peanut butter, no white bread. All bread should be brown and make pasta and rice wholemeal/brown. Nothing with a cheap white flour eg pizza bases.

Eat prunes - four or five a day, get them in a bag from the dried fruit section.

Yes they are brutal aren’t they? I have them too, oh my, the texture and that
”earthy” taste”’🤮🤣

Regular Psyllium Husk (I take up to 4 a day) and a strong coffee 😂

Thats all that’s worked for me but I’m going to try magnesium based on the thread! Thank you and good luck OP 🙂

This works but even better is if you can put your feet up on the seat

Do you get regular exercise, and I mean exercise where your blood is pumping, not just a slow strole?

Coeliac disease

I know you have been given a lot of advice and to echo what others have said, the ferrous fumarate will likely be contributing. I see it all the time in my line of work. Do you have low iron?

Do you take the iron with vitamin c?
tinned pears help me, drink the juice too

I haven’t rtft but I just wanted to say 800 mg of magnesium citrate was a game changer for me. It’s above the recommended amount but it worked and then I reduced the daily dose.
it took a couple of weeks

You really have to take aperients. You cannot suffer constipation like that. It isn't just the discomfort.

The goodness in the food you need are absorbed by osmosis and the waste products need to be got rid of. If they stay in the gut too long the toxins are liable to be reabsorbed like osmosis in reverse. That makes your liver and kidneys work overtime trying to get rid of them. That is what makes you tired,

I suffer too. You can take any of the aperients on the market or ask your GP. There is a powder called Laxido which my GP recommends and which you can easily increase the dose without too many after affects.

My Mother suffered from constipation all her life. None of the prescribed remedies worked. She had a motion every 5 days and it was really painful I advised her to try cutting down on white bread, she did and replaced it with Warburton's seeded batch. Two small slices for breakfast with marmalade and she increased her fluid intake (drank more tea). After a few days she started going to the loo every morning and her stools were soft. She was delighted.

OP not sure if this has been piinted out as too tired to read all but it's the Ferrous tablets!!! Any iron tablets causes massive constipation! Can you not let them go and take natural iron syrups from Holland and barret or up your meat intake ? I refuse iron tablets now as it blocks you up and feels awful !! Leave them and watch things moving ! If not - laxatives are the only way ....

Raspberries have 4x more fibre than kiwi!

I'm told a whole kiwi on a morning works wonders!

I’d be chronically constipated if I ate this every day too.

So a typical day for me:
breakfast - porridge oats with honey and two cups of coffee Porridge is not too bad, maybe try less actual oats and replace with some milled linseed, perhaps a couple of dried dates, cranberries, and/or mixed nuts & seeds.

lunch - peanut butter sandwhich with a packet of crisps (I know!) Your lunch is the worst meal of the day, sandwich & crisps are proper gut cloggers, add some salad/veg in to it, ditch the crisps and replace with ‘crudites’ like cucumber & celery, nuts or fruit, opt for berries, pears, apples, or plums rather than bananas or citrus.

dinner - meat and veg (broccoli, carrots, sprouts etc)
carrots are starchy, swap them for green beans, cauliflower, courgette, spinach, roasted peppers

300g magnesium citrate
one ferrous fumerate (every other day) iron supplements are often linked with constipation, make sure you’re taking a gut friendly one, the basic NHS ones are not the best

Tons of sparkling water
One glass of Prune juice

you mention ‘rabbit poo’; small hard stools are a sign of slow gut transit, you can drink as much water as you like but if your food moves through your bowel very slowly all the water is absorbed out and the result is small rocks. You need to encourage peristalsis, to move your food through your gut more efficiently, it’s an old remedy but senna is a gut stimulant, and may help you whilst you wait for the dietary changes to take effect. If you make these changes and it still doesn’t help ask your GP for a food transit test, either a barium meal, or where you swallow a capsule that contains markers that show up on X-rays.

Ok - for my breakfast I’ve had a tbsp of olive oil, a bowl of porridge with a tbsp soaked chia seeds and 3 chopped figs. Now if I’m not shitting through the eye of a needle by lunch time I’m going to be a bit fuming

🤪 was wondering.

Your update is good for future poos, but it isn't going to help the hard ones. You need movicol/laxido to soften it and break it down.

Try the step/equivalent for the loo - especially if you are not 'average man' height as many loo seats are too high for many women to sit even with feet flat comfortably on the ground (older loos are worse I think). You should find it makes a difference.

Also, since there are no obvious reasons and if diet doesn't help, I would wonder if you have any hypermobility? A friend of mine also gets this crazy bloating after certain foods - looks about 7 months pregnant! Basically her gut is so flexible that it allows it to stretch that far (or something like that) but it shouldn't. It means that her digestion is regularly 'off' as it's all a bit too wiggly in there (yes, I know, clearly missed my vocation as a doctor!😁). The point is, it took her years to get a diagnosis and nothing else really affected her so she was taking all different things, but the problem was more of a physical thing, so no amount of drugs or fibre was helping.

Unfortunately chronic long term constipation is likely to take time. Food doesn't usually have such a dramatic effect. Keep going with it.

I do have hyper mobility! I didn’t realise this could affect the bowel!?

I have to backtrack on what I said earlier - I posted whilst the porridge was cooking. Turns out I ate about half a fig as I was in clear danger of throwing up if I continued trying. Absolutely vile 🤮

I managed the porridge and chia seeds. Olive oil was first thing this morning

I'd advocate a lot of exercise, particularly walking. I have IBS with a leaning towards constipation and have learnt that even what I think of as a regular bowel habit is actually low grade constipation. I also have a very slow gut. You can test yours easily, once you are having frequent bowel movements, by eating sweetcorn and waiting to see how long before you see bits of them in your stool.

Anyway, I've already changed my diet in the ways suggested above. Breakfast for me is predominantly fruit and yoghurt with chia seeds, lunch is either salad with nuts sprinkled on top or vegetable soups with more fruit, dinner always contains at least 2, often a lot more, veg. I am mindful of drinking enough water, and consume as few UPF as possible.

I have often been told the only thing I can improve on is my exercise regime. One of my hobbies is hiking and I have definitely noticed that after (sometimes during! 😧) a hike, the urge for a bowel movement can be very strong.