# Is it possible to be constipated in the small intestine?



## futureyogi (Dec 25, 2013)

My doctor is telling me that its impossible to be constipated in the small intestine. He says that it is all liquid until it reaches the last half of the large intestine. I thought that it was more of a gradual process..

Anyway my point is that I feel like my constipation (going on three months now) is in my small intestine. I know it sounds strange to think that I know where I am blocked up, but thats why I'm asking this here.

I feel like every laxative I take clears me slightly but doesnt cure me. I don't know what to do anymore..Gonna have to go to the specialist again to figure it out. Maybe a different one.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

I wouldn't be sure how they would diagnose it.

How do you know that only the small intestine is constipated and that the stool then moves 100% normal in the colon? Even though it is hard,dry, and hard to pass long before it should even be semi-solid?

Usualy things that give you any indication of transit time either look for it in the colon, or tend to effect transit time (because when you are empty and drink barium or other tracer it doesn't always move the same rate a meal would).

Generally food is in the stomach for like an hour or so. Gets through the small intestine (which only dumps water in and not takes water out) about 6 hours after you eat it then spends the remaining 10-70 hours in the colon very slowly having the water that was dumped in earlier removed.

You can't absorb nutrients from a solid, so it has to be liquid through the small intestine and so then into the first part of the colon.

I mean they can do sitz markers, but they don't usually do an hour by hour X-ray but do it a few days later to see if they are stuck in the colon somewhere.

About the only thing that causes movement issues in the small intestine is pseudo-obstruction, but that is pretty rare and I don't know if you have the additional symptoms that tends to have.

http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/intestinalpo/

It is also possible to have SIBO which can make you bloated and you might be able to sense that is more central and not in the stomach or colon, maybe, but that isn't constipation.


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