AIBU to ask what might cause urgent morning bowel movements?

[Wahey79]

Sorry if TMI. Every morning for a number of years now I have needed a fairly urgent bowel movement, always with sound effects. It’s getting me down and I can’t understand it.

I’ve tried the mental health side in case it’s IBS (yoga, breathing, exercise, etc), removing triggers (my WellWoman multivitamin tablet was making it worse as I was taking it at dinner, so moved it to breakfast time and switched to a gentler brand). I’ve given up caffeine, reduced alcohol (mostly none), my diet is balanced with plenty of fibre (but not excessive amounts).

I am otherwise well health-wise, on well-tolerated HRT. If it was related to dairy/bread etc surely I’d have problems at other times of the day? Bowels normal otherwise.

Any advice or ideas appreciated. Thank you.

I will try stopping the multivitamin first in case it’s iron, but I think this has to be next. I do love bread!

I did try reducing the magnesium but it didn’t seem to make a difference. I take the chelated type (biglycinate I think) which is meant to not irritate the gut. Also what I take at night really helps my sleep! But I’ll definitely stop the multivitamin for a bit and see if that helps.

The only time I had this was when I was taking magnesium. It doesn't happen when taking the glycinate form. I bet it's your Multivit.

• edit, oh crosspost

Thank you this is still really useful as I’ve been going round in circles researching it all; it really helps to hear others’ experiences.

It might not just be one thing either. There could be several things that upset your stomach.

I get this and im sure its my oestrogel, started as soon as i got it and if I skip a day my bowels are ok

It's unlikely to be dietary. These bowel changes in older women are usually associated with our hormones.
HRT induced IBS symptoms in me and it wasn't until I did some research and chatted with a GI consultant (who was doing studies in this area) that I realised there is a significant increase in IBS symptoms for women on HRT.
For post menopausal women on HRT the risk of IBS is 75% higher than those not on HRT.
These are big studies with tens of thousand of subjects, have a Google.

Bile acid malabsorption can also do this. It's quite common and is behind a lot of what gets labelled as 'IBS'. I had it after a surgery that causes it, and my symptoms were exactly what you describe - but it can occur with no injury/surgery/etc to trigger it too.
Morning urgency is often linked to your body's inability to digest fats from the dinner before (which is what bile acid malabsorption is all about). Try cutting out all fat and oil for a day and see if it improves. Not saying you should cut out all fat long-term but it's a good test.

If you were serious about testing whether food, particularly wheat, affects you, you'd need to give them up for at least 2 weeks rather than just a few days to get any sort of real idea if they affect you.

I’ve been like this since I had my gallbladder out, except mines generally after any meal. It’s annoying as I have to be prepared if eating out - can’t do a pub lunch for instance and go straight out for a walk. It’s annoying, but I’ve got used to it now

Mines been like this since Peri started. Doctors spent ages investigating it. I used to have bowels and bladder of steel. I could hold it for days if need be. Now I struggle if someone’s in the shower and I need to go, sometimes I can’t wait, which is obviously mortifying.

vaginal oestrogen as helped with the bladder but not bowels. No advice, just solidarity here op!

I’ve had something similar for a while and was really fed up. All tests were negative. I saw someone about food intolerances and they advised me to stop porridge, chicken and carrots. I’ve stopped porridge as used to have this all the time, introduced kefir at breakfast with berries, seeds and nuts and kombucha with my evening meal. Less bread. I have seen a marked improvement whereas I was going at least three times in the morning, it’s now once in the morning and then again in the afternoon. What has also probably helped us I retired at the end of last year so no stressful days and early mornings. I hope you can improve things. The worse thing for me was the constant feeling of being unclean.

I have exactly the same, often wakes me up and I have to run to the loo. It’s very loose, smelly and messy. Most of the time once I’ve been, I’m fine the rest of the day. Altho I do often bloat later in the afternoon. I’ve been putting it down to peri. It rarely makes a difference what/when I eat.

Thank you so much for the more recent posts and all of the advice. I wanted to update in case it helps others.

I stopped my multivitamin for about 10 days, thinking the iron in that was the culprit, but it made no difference. I then forced myself to reassess the magnesium I have been taking (as mentioned above it’s glycinate, so not meant to affect bowels), and I decided to take it with my evening meal rather than at bedtime (I cannot go cold turkey on the thing that has transformed my sleep!).

For the first time in at least two years, I had a normal bowel movement this morning! So this is a sample of just one day, I appreciate, but the difference is staggering.

Thanks to those upthread who said it was likely that. To anyone finding this through a search, the glycinate magnesium can definitely affect your bowels too! I have Solgar Chelated Magnesium in case it helps to know, and took the same recommended dose last night (4 tablets). Thanks again to all who have commented and helped.

this thread has been life changing. I’ve had porridge for breakfast for 10/15 years and would never have imagined that was causing the issue all of a sudden.
I have it with water, it fills me up for ages, it’s cheap and sometimes I even have it for lunch.
swapped to cornflakes. Literally fixed it over night.
it’s ridiculous I feel so stupid, but I’d never have thought it was the issue. It should (in theory) do the opposite!

so thank you op for starting this post and thank you everyone for the good advice

The magnesium is very likely to be implicated!! It's a powerful laxative. Try missing this for a few nights and I think you'll notice a big difference.

I don't have a deep understanding of this, but magnesium has the effect of pulling water into the intestines, which will then, among other things, make a softer stool. I have had a few illustrations of this recently when trying to go for blood tests - I also have to drink a huge amount of water because of kidney problems, more than I want to. Even on several pints, kind of at 'sloshing level', with any magnesium, a few phlebotomists have commented that I definitely can't have drunk enough based on the vein behaviour. Soluble magnesium is even worse for this.
If there are gassy and liquidy results, especially after an overnight period of fasting/sleeping, I have wondered whether there is not enough fibre or similar to soak up liquid, then some overreacting muscle contractions as digestion wants to come back online.

Read the update! I think you are right.

I am so pleased to hear this for you, that’s fabulous. We all need to talk about our bowels more!

I’ve had this for years. Mentioned it to the doctors whose only advice was to take Imodium. For me it stopped when low-carbing and when pregnant.

Interesting, as after I had taken it yesterday evening I felt thirsty almost constantly. Strong stuff!

I am also a bit baffled as I’ve been like this for years and just thought it was normal !
I don’t know what I’d say to a GP , I always need to poo in the morning, it’s noisy and I need to clean the loo afterwards? I honestly think they’d say that was normal!

I'm too am a sufferer of this. I swear it all started after I had COVID years ago. Coincidence probably...
I will read pp more carefully and have a good read.

Hopefully those changes will help reduce the problem @Wahey79
Another thing to be aware of is the use of sorbitol in sugar free sweets such as mints and chewing gum which can cause bloating and diarrhoea.
There’s quite a bit of info on this if you Google sorbitol and sugar free sweets.
If your recent changes aren’t effective I would recommend cutting out all gluten from your diet. I had a similar problem to you and decided to go for a healthy diet to lose weight which included removing bread, pastry and pasta because they are often paired with fatty foods. So mainly fruit, salad, veg and protein. It was really effective and I rarely have a problem now.
Kefir is good too to restore the balance in the gut.

I think this is quite common in perimenopause or menopause. The oestrogen is responsible for tightening muscles, so when it starts to drop, your muscles become weaker and everything passes through you more quickly.

I’ve been the same for years. Done multiple FIT tests and all fine.