Help with bowels

[wife2jeff]

He was doing miralax when he seemed he wasn't having bm's for 1-2 days at a time and doing that with dulcolax. Now with the nopalina it seems miralax maybe causing his bms to be more "messy' pasty I know gross sorry. So that's why I'm thinking he needs to keep increasing the nopalina to the 8 per day, he was up to 6

[Tupelo honey]

Too much miralax def causes softer bms for me. I use a half dose daily. I’d try less miralax and more Nopalina if I were him to try and firm things up. Tweak the doses to find the best amounts for him. And remember, time will help too!

[wife2jeff]

So here we are again, bowel issues. Things were going fairly well, for a few weeks, then bam this last chemo really caused him constipation. We found that the nopalina were causing too many bowel movements per day, not sure if that was the senna leaf in it but he was having to take immodium but it started causing his tenesmus to really act up so he stopped taking it and his bowels seemed to be way better without, T was gone until this chemo treatment. His tenesmus has been so bad yet no bm for going on 4 days now. He can't keep in a suppository because the tenesmus just makes it come right back out. Here we thought we were on track and now this. Nothing seems to be working to get him to go, he's been doing miralax, stool softeners, dulcolax nothing has worked yet. So frustrating causing him more distress on top of the feeling horrible from chemo. Sorry for the vent.

[MetastaticEquilibria]

I find magnesium oxide works pretty well and doesn’t usually hurt. It is sold as Magmitt in Japan, or generically as magnesium oxide. Don’t know brand names elsewhere. Fairly gentle yet effective.

When that doesn't work, time to bust out the enemas.

[wife2jeff]

Thank you I will look into that. The problem with the enemas and suppositories is he cant keep them in because this tenesmus the spasms just push it all right back out.

[natelaugh]

Hi,

My dad uses senokot. He takes 3 pills at night daily and if he still can't go, he takes 4 pills.

https://www.cvs.com/shop/senokot-laxative-sennosides-tablets-50ct-prodid-1011845

Nate.

[tminor5]

Thought I’d bring this back up because it has good information in here. Hoping for some suggestions for my hubby. He had his last stigmoid whatever to check his connection. Good news did shrink and stretched it up to 20 mm. Now he’s been approved to eat whatever he wants. He was on low fiber. Hubby’s BM have been every 2-3 days. Kind of normal no cramping or anything. He feels normal. But the gastro said he needed to start taking miralax. He wants him to go 1-2 times per day. We also went to see his primary to get him back in his meds he had to stop taking so the gastro said his primary could control meds for this. But call him if hubby gets any blockages or stomach pains from constipation. His primary agreed to start with the miralax but said if when he checks his other meds in 2 months if he wasn’t able to make his movements more “normal” then there is prescription meds for cronic constipation.

Anyway just wondering if there are any suggestions if we should just do the miralax or try the nopalina also? His dr is ok with him trying different things. Let him know what we find to work. But again in 2 months if it doesn’t work his wants to try the prescription.

[NHMike]

Thought I’d bring this back up because it has good information in here. Hoping for some suggestions for my hubby. He had his last stigmoid whatever to check his connection. Good news did shrink and stretched it up to 20 mm. Now he’s been approved to eat whatever he wants. He was on low fiber. Hubby’s BM have been every 2-3 days. Kind of normal no cramping or anything. He feels normal. But the gastro said he needed to start taking miralax. He wants him to go 1-2 times per day. We also went to see his primary to get him back in his meds he had to stop taking so the gastro said his primary could control meds for this. But call him if hubby gets any blockages or stomach pains from constipation. His primary agreed to start with the miralax but said if when he checks his other meds in 2 months if he wasn’t able to make his movements more “normal” then there is prescription meds for cronic constipation.

Anyway just wondering if there are any suggestions if we should just do the miralax or try the nopalina also? His dr is ok with him trying different things. Let him know what we find to work. But again in 2 months if it doesn’t work his wants to try the prescription.

I think the idea is to head off the potential for constipation by clearing things out and I think that's a good idea. I always like the idea of removing the odds of something bad happening.

Miralax helps to push things out.

Nopalina has Pre-Biotics, Fiber and Senna Leaves.

Senna is a laxative
The fiber helps to bulk up, absorb water and soften stools
Pre-Biotics feed your gut bacteria

I generally believe that you shouldn't take things if you don't need them. That said, I just took my Slippery Elm and Nopalina tablets for this morning as I find that they help me quite a bit. What I've seen is that various things help some people and don't do much for others. The only way to find out is to try them out and see how you do. I think that I'd go with the Miralax for a while and see how that goes. Then add the Nopalina after establishing a baseline to see how that goes. I think that he should only use it if he needs something that it does.

Nopalina also has fruit juice extracts. I'm not sure what those do but I expect that they have some purpose. Originally I thought that it was for flavoring but I'm taking the capsules so they have no flavoring effect at all.

[dianetavegia]

Once my bm's were regular, I decreased Miralax to 1/2 cap a day due to messy bms.

[Lolly]

I have a question about the napolina .

Is it ground up, or are there "whole seeds" in here?