# Water only after taking miramax/culturelle/oxypowder, what does it mean?



## toblerone (Jun 20, 2009)

Greetings forum,I recently (have been 2,3 weeks) started becoming constipated. The doctor has suggested miramax and have been on that for a week. i have also started taking culturelle for about 4 days. It seems to have improved a bit but still not like before. Once or twice i only pass out lots of water and i was wondering what that means. Since the result hasnt been super last nite i took 6 oxypowder pills, today also i only had lots of water.Has anyone else experience the same thing with these treatments? One thing i really wonder is, is water better than none?Thanks in advance for any advice.


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## Collegeguy101 (Dec 2, 2008)

Your colon could be completely empty if thats all your passing but I'm not sure if that would be the case. I'm guessing culturelle is some sort of probiotic and I think you mean miralax instead of miramax.What is oxypowder? Is some sort of a laxative colon cleanser? If it is I would say the combination of miralax and oxypowder would be the cause of why you're passing purely water.EDIT: I researched oxypowder and found it was a intestinal detoxifying supplement and helps your colon to function normally. My guess would be that the combination of laxative, probiotic and colon detoxifying would probably cause you to pass water. I would contact your doctor about this just in case.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Oxypowder is a high dose magnesium.Both magenesium salts and Miralax at high doses are used as colonoscopy preps and you do want those to be causing you to pass watery stools. They are both osmotic laxatives.I think you need to back off the dose. For routine treatment of constipation you want enough that you pass stool, but not so much you completely clean out the colon.Ideally you find a dose that make you go about one to two times a day and still have some solid parts to the stool (might be loose or soft, but not all the way to water.You might find after you flush the system that much it may trigger another round of constipation. Especially if you aren't eating anything so aren't putting any fiber in there to form the next round of stools.You can have pain or bloating even if you get the stools going regularly, so some people think they may need more osmotic laxative but you can over do it as you do flush out some of the normal bacteria in there if you do it too much. There are some people that find if they don't get things mostly liquid they don't pass anything out. If you are running clear that means you are clean enough inside for a colonoscopy (no brown in the water) and that is probably more than anyone needs on a regular basis.


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## toblerone (Jun 20, 2009)

Thanks for the responses.I have been eating the way i used to eat but as you can already guess, food intake is less because of the constipation. The first time i had just water i was on miralax, how did i come up with miramax =) and culturelle. the second time i added oxypowder to that same formula, so maybe oxypowder is not what is causing it. i do take metamucil every nite, and i believe i drink enough water. I do not have any pain just a bit discomfort and feel full all the times. Yesterday i only took culturelle and today i have little, solid, not water. I was just wondering what does passing just water (not clear, brown, oh and red too because of bleeding) mean, whether it is better than none at all.Agree i need to cut back, i should take them separately just to figure out which is helping which is not.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Passing clear water means you are taking enough osmotic laxative to be clean enough inside for a colonoscopy and that is too much for regular use.When you use osmotics (either magnesium compounds like the oxypowder) or what is in miralax (sometimes with some salts in it) for a colonoscopy prep you are supposed to take enough to run clear.Taking more than one osmotic laxative at a time (oxy and miralax) increases the chances you will completely clean out the colon.The problem with taking enough you run clear you may upset the electrolyte balance in your body and that can be bad (like stop your heart bad).You want to take just enough to go. Not so much you have nothing at all left in the colon and have clear water coming out.Cleaning yourself up completely sets you up for the next round of constipation so you could be on a vicious cycle.I know some people only feel comfortable when they are completely and totally empty, but it can be a problem over time and if you gut is that sensitive to having normal amounts of stool in it, you may need to take something else to address that rather than trying to get there to be zero stool inside.


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## toblerone (Jun 20, 2009)

Thanks Kathleen for the explanation.So i guess i am okay since the water wasnt clear? i stopped oxypowder starting yesterday, will see how it is tmrw.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Well you can get into trouble even if you just have lots of watery brown diarrhea, but probably not as easily. After all people don't always run clear when they need to go to the hospital with a GI illness but still got themselves dangerously dehydrated.Some depends on how many BM's over how much time. The osmotics pull water out of the body and into the stool. One watery movement a day is less problematic than watery diarrhea 20X a day.Running brown vs clear kinda lets you know where in the overdosing yourself scale you are. Some people need to get the stool mostly liquid or it doesn't come out at all, but if you can pass solid stools or loose stools I would recommend staying on that part of the dose range.


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