Delicately wondering

[cylegoddess]

I dont think that three times a week is all that bad. I eat mostly all fruits and veggies, and its ok for me.
I find that if your having some of those problems, isagenix( get online) isaflush( not a laxative but herbs that keep you regular) works a treat. Oh and prune juice!Had to stop myself from getting that , as I love the taste but...

[SpinSpinSugar]

Hmm.. no coffee drinkers here apparently. LOL .. Usually 1/2 way through my first cup the colon bomb goes off and off to the loo I must go. Same thing for my BF. There is only 1 bathroom in the house and sometimes it's a race to get there first

[staceysue]

LOL

I'm a nurse on afternoon shift on a rehab unit. It's referred to as the "poop shift". The patients are ALL about bowel movements, and afternoon shift is responsible for making that happen. We have stimulant laxatives, fiber laxatives, enemas, stool softeners - you name it. It's at the center of everybody's mind. These are the people who are very happy if they go 3 times a week. They're old or very sick and don't move around much, not burning very many calories, with extremely small appetites. They eat as much in a week as most cyclists probably eat in a day.

What goes in must come out! The more you burn, the more you eat, the more you keep your bowels moving. I have taken care of constipated big eaters, though - young people. Talk about a mess!

My husband and I have a big garden and try to grow as much of our own food as possible and eat lots of veggies, plus I eat a big bowl of raisin bran every morning. That + cycling = good BMs.

Happy pooping, everyone!

[badger]

the article's no longer there, so I don't know what it said, but I've had problems with it all my life. I'm mostly vegetarian and eat probably double the amount of vegetables the average people eat. I also eat high fibre cereals and brown rice. Yet I still have trouble being regular.

The only time I was was when I was taking Kefir, but it was kind of going the opposite spectrum where I was going much too much.

For me I know it has a LOT to do with anxiety in general every day life.

But the worst is when I travel. I plug right up and it gets really uncomfortable after a while.

[OakLeaf]

I used to be like that. It was awful. Don't know if it was just having to get used to frequent travel, or being more diligent about exercise in the road, that made the difference.

[ny biker]

Okay, we have information from an expert. Bodily functions are a favorite subject of Gene Weingarten, who is a columnist for the Washington Post. This week for his online chat, he took a poll of his readers which included questions on frequency of farts per day and poops per week. In commenting on the poll results, he says that he interviewed experts for a book he wrote years ago on hypochondria, and the average is 7-8 poops per week. However he also points out that the "normal range" is wide.

The transcript from the chat is here. Just so you're warned, Gene and his readers do not mince words. Also be careful about clicking on the links that he provides in his chat, because some may be not safe for work or may be blocked by your firewall.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072801766.html

The poll in question is the Low-Brow poll. You can click on the "Continue" button at the bottom to see the results, and it's not necessary to actually take the poll.

(Previous online chats with Gene have delved into the phenomenon of poop-shame, from which many women apparently suffer. This is the reluctance to go in a public restroom due to embarrassment. He's also discovered that women flush with their feet, and he finds this fascinating because evidently men don't do this.)

[OakLeaf]

Bah. Men don't flush at all with those swirling urinals.

[shootingstar]

the phenomenon of poop-shame, from which many women apparently suffer. This is the reluctance to go in a public restroom due to embarrassment. He's also discovered that women flush with their feet, and he finds this fascinating because evidently men don't do this.)

Hmmm...I guess maybe that's why occasionally some women are constantly flushing the toilet...OR they are doing this because they are barfing (you know binging and barfing due to eating disorder).

For the former that is a huge hang-up for something so normal. For the latter, just covering up a terrible symptom. I did overhear someone for latter, do this ....and she was losing weight, quite concerned about her weight and looking tired with watery eyes after barfing 'secretly' in a public washroom with constantly flushing toilet. But for both, an unnecessary waste of water.

[badger]

I hate communal pooping stalls. My last workplace had a busy communal pooper and I seriously did hold it in sometimes.

Does anyone here have IBS?

[Jolt]

I'm a nurse on afternoon shift on a rehab unit. It's referred to as the "poop shift". The patients are ALL about bowel movements, and afternoon shift is responsible for making that happen. We have stimulant laxatives, fiber laxatives, enemas, stool softeners - you name it. It's at the center of everybody's mind. These are the people who are very happy if they go 3 times a week. They're old or very sick and don't move around much, not burning very many calories, with extremely small appetites. They eat as much in a week as most cyclists probably eat in a day.

What goes in must come out! The more you burn, the more you eat, the more you keep your bowels moving. I have taken care of constipated big eaters, though - young people. Talk about a mess!

LOL, I can relate!! I'm also a nurse, currently working in a nursing home (trying to change that part!). We have a bowel protocol that we initiate if somebody doesn't go for three days. I always joke about our job being the only one where we get excited about somebody pooping! Speaking of poop at the nursing home, I had to deal with a real mess one day last week. A resident who had a colostomy had been constipated and therefore gotten a laxative on the shift before mine. She then went down to bingo, and came back to the floor a few minutes after I had arrived and taken report. The CNA told me she needed a new colostomy bag because hers was leaking. What an understatement--more like it had exploded!!! The laxative had had its desired effect and the bag had gotten so full that it came unstuck from her abdomen, resulting not only in a mess on the resident's pants but also in a trail of liquid stool down the hall where she had been brought in her wheelchair. Needless to say, one heck of a cleanup was necessary. "Code Brown, third floor"!

[BikingNurse]

Code Brown! Those are the days that I really think I was a smart cookie for going to the clinic. Don't miss that mess at all!

[staceysue]

LOL Gotta love nursing!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

When my mother was in a very nice nursing home for 3 years, it was little wonder to me that most of the residents had constipation as the norm. The meals had almost no roughage or whole grains or fiber in them....white rice, white bread, white cream of wheat, pale iceburg lettuce, rice crispies, white flour pasta....
i kept thinking how odd it was to systematically cause constipation with a cheap over-processed institutional diet, only to have to give stool softeners/laxatives every few days.

[Jolt]

When my mother was in a very nice nursing home for 3 years, it was little wonder to me that most of the residents had constipation as the norm. The meals had almost no roughage or whole grains or fiber in them....white rice, white bread, white cream of wheat, pale iceburg lettuce, rice crispies, white flour pasta....
i kept thinking how odd it was to systematically cause constipation with a cheap over-processed institutional diet, only to have to give stool softeners/laxatives every few days.

Very good point...the inactivity plus that diet is a recipe for constipation! Hospital food can be pretty bad too; I have a hard time understanding how places that are intended to help people get healthy can serve such garbage sometimes.

[grey]

I'm mostly vegan, so I go sometimes 3x a day - especially if my intake is nearly all fruits and veggies. Supposedly this is healthy.

However, even trying to stay vegetarian while caring for my sister in the hospital for a week at a time twice in the past year stopped me right up. It was wildly uncomfortable after all of 2 days. Travel does the same thing. No clue why... but ugh. What a horrid feeling. I can't understand how it can be considered normal to go only 3 times in a week! Oy!