UOAA Discussion Board

Found this site after lots of searching for fellow sisters and brothers, thanks for running it!!!

I irrigate and really love the control it gives. However I have some problems with keeping my stomach moderate. Hopefully you can give some advise. Before the surgery 2 years ago my stomach was always hard (I took extra fibers) and it still seems to be the problem. For me it means that irrigation stops working every now and then after some perfect weeks with nothing coming inbetween the irrigations (I do it every second day). What usually happens is that when I irrigate suddenly very litte comes out, the first that comes is too hard and it feels also like there is a stop somewhere in there. Sometimes a lot soft then comes late at night, but often little by little pretty hard but also medium comes during the next two days. Often there is then congestion next time for irrigating and I get problems with the inflow of water. Every time this happens it takes at least one week to come back to normal.

So I tried some methods for helping the stomach out. One has been to on a regular basis use the bowel regulator Inolaxol (in Swedish) which is a plant fiber increasing intestinal contents volume and helps to normalize bowel function. Said to help both soft and hard stomachs. The other method has been to regularly use the medicine Movicol which make stools soft. Neither of the methods so far have given satisfying result. And I really need that, I work a lot travelling which makes it very difficult every time the stomach is not in order. Have you any experiences using stomach regulations? any advises? any ?

I should maybe add that I have a small stoma hernia, it makes me more vulnerable when constipated. When I was recently x-rayed for the two year control of the cancer I asked my doctor to examine the pictures for the cause of irrigation problems but there appeared nothing strange in the bowels except from constipation just before the stoma. So he advocated soften the stools with the medicine Movicol.
I also want to mention that I was operated in june 2014 for a small stoma hernia and another hernia just obove the navel, and they put net on both. I was also operated in March 2015 for a pelvic floor hernia where they also put nets, and they made a ’lambå’ in Swedish, tissue in English? thus it was quite a big operation. So my muscles obviously doesn’t appreciate being cut in… the wounds tend to be very weak afterwards. I mention this to give you the big picture. And also to explain that the doctors doesn’t think there are any specific problems inside of me that may cause irrigation problems (they may of course be wrong… they don’t have much time when we meet…).