There can be multiple reasons for not being able to have a bowel movement.\u00a0 Some of them can require medical attention.\u00a0 I will start with the simplest reasons and cover how to correct them here. \u00a0If these don’t correct your problem, please seek medical attention.<\/p>\n
One of your colons jobs is to reabsorb water.\u00a0 Water is vital to our body.\u00a0 We need it to live.\u00a0 Without the right amount, we can have brain fog, stutter, stagger, or lose consciousness.\u00a0 Our bodies go to great lengths to maintain the right balance.\u00a0 When we eat, we mix the food with saliva (water), then stomach acid (more water), then bile, pancreatic enzymes and other substances (still more water) to make a slurry that allows the food to flow through the digestive system and be broken down and absorbed.\u00a0 Once this process has completed, our body recovers as much water as it can to conserve our supply.\u00a0 This mainly happens in the colon.<\/p>\n
When we are taking the right amount of water into our diet, the body (and colon) has enough and can afford to give up a bit.\u00a0 Our feces come out coated in a bit of mucous as a lubricant and we consider that normal. \u00a0Bowel movements don’t hurt and they happen regularly.<\/p>\n
If you are a bit low on water, the body reduces the mucous and things don\u2019t slide as well.\u00a0 Painful bowel movements or tears around the rectum can result.<\/p>\n
If you are more dehydrated, the body hangs onto the stool a bit longer to pull out more water.\u00a0 Now we have constipation.\u00a0 It can get bad.\u00a0 I once had a patient who only had a bowel movement once every six to eight WEEKS!<\/p>\n
This is a cycle that, unfortunately, can cause some lasting problems.\u00a0 The gut is a muscle.\u00a0 It needs water and exercise to stay healthy.\u00a0 If you are dehydrated and the gut slows down as a result, this can lead to slower movement through the gut tube.\u00a0 While correctable for most people, maintaining good health is easier and trying to recover from poor habits.<\/p>\n
Most animals eat and then poop (watch your dogs and cats).\u00a0 We should be similar if our gut is in good shape.\u00a0 Having a bowel movement once per day is the minimum I define as healthy.\u00a0 If you are having less than that the food in your gut has a prolonged time to create toxins and we don\u2019t need an excess of them nowadays.<\/p>\n
To make sure you have enough water coming in, use this simple formula – drink \u00bd of your body weight in pounds in ounces of water daily.\u00a0 (Coffee, Tea, Soda Pop, and Alcohol are all diuretics (make you pee out more water than they give you) and should not be counted in the above formula).\u00a0 That is going to get you in the ball park for having enough fluid.<\/p>\n
Once there, if you are still having problems, try more water, then you can first add bulk forming agents.\u00a0 These are usually the husks of seeds (psyllium, wheat germ, senna) that have been dried and ground. When they get wet, they swell. This adds bulk to the stool.\u00a0 This bulk can trigger a bowel movement. Try not to rely on these long term.\u00a0 They are OK to help return your bowel health to normal, but should not be life long additives.<\/p>\n
If the bulk forming agents don\u2019t help, you can add laxative agents.\u00a0 These help to relax the gut muscle.\u00a0 My first recommendation is pure MSM (with nothing else added). Take one gram every 15 minutes until you have a bowel movement.\u00a0 Vitamin C works the same way and in the same dose (don\u2019t use chewable vitamin c in these amounts).\u00a0 You can also use magnesium.\u00a0 MOM (milk of magnesia) and Epson Salts (magnesium sulfate) can be used as laxatives.\u00a0 Smaller doses of magnesium (usually in pill form) can be added to the diet daily to help keep things flowing.<\/p>\n
If these simple methods don\u2019t solve your constipation, then ask a doctor before going to more aggressive treatments.\u00a0 I am happy to work with my patients to help them restore bowel health and regularity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There can be multiple reasons for not being able to have a bowel movement.\u00a0 Some of them can require medical attention.\u00a0 I will start with the simplest reasons and cover how to correct them here. \u00a0If these don’t correct your problem, please seek medical attention. One of your colons jobs is to reabsorb water.\u00a0 Water […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":797,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions\/797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}