Howdy! I've hit a rough patch lately and I'm looking for ideas and suggestions.
I'm having a lot of trouble sleeping at night due to intermittent abdominal pain, pressure around where my rectum used to be, poop leaks, urges to poop, etc. What might help?
I was diagnosed with rectal cancer in 2015 (and apparently unrelated Mantel Cell Lymphoma, but that's another story).
I had surgery to remove my rectum and a few inches of colon; the surgeon saved my anal sphincter, sewed my colon and the stub of my rectum together, and gave me an ileostomy to give my new connection a chance to heal. I got an infection where my rectum used to be and wound up with scarring that restricts my new plumbing. My surgeon got all of the tumor so I didn't have to do radiation or chemotherapy, yay!
I took a long time to heal, and used dilators to stretch my scar tissue.
We reversed my ileostomy in December 2016, and, well, my bowels have forgotten how pooping works. After a month or two of diarrhea and constipation, I started doing a daily enema to clean myself out.
This worked well for months. My normal routine is miralax once a day, fiber (psyllium) 3-4 times a day, and a warm water enema, usually in the evening. I've tried a number of different fibers and several different, ah, poop encouragers (senna, castor oil, ducosodium, vitamin b5, probiotics) and nothing has ever produced bowel movements: leakage, yes! After my enema I felt empty and usually had no leakage or poop urges for hours.
Recently my enemas haven't been working: not enough gunk comes out, I have pain and leaks and a strong sense of pressure for hours afterwards. Sometimes I have many many tiny poops. Nights are worst: I often can't sleep.
So I'm wondering what I can do to improve things. I've thought about trying to schedule my eating so my bowels aren't full at night, but I haven't figured out the timing of how long food takes to pass through me. I'd love to find something that reliably induces a bowel movement, and/or I'd love to figure out how to make my enemas more effective.
So that's my current tale of (modest) woe. Anyone got any ideas of things I could try that might help?
Thanks,
Philip