# stool consistency



## TanaG (Jul 11, 2009)

It happens to me sometimes, though these days I am mostly ok, to have really weird stools: half of the stool comes out normal, solid and the other half of it is loose.This happens maybe once every two weeks and sometimes two or three days in a row if I drink alcohol. I think it is rather weird two have two different...so different consistencies of poo in the same stool. Am a bit worried. Does any of you have the same thing? Or do you know any logical explanation for it? It feels like the first poo has been produced by a normal healthy colon and then later on the same colon started to act up and messes the rest of the stool.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

The colon can't do much to take a normal stool and then mess it up.You see this a lot with IBS were stool consistency can change from stool to stool and sometimes even within a single bowel movement.Think of the colon like a conveyor belt. Liquid comes in one end (you add enough water to your food at the start to make a liquid emulsion out of it. It needs to be liquid to absorb the nutrients out of it).As the stool goes through the colon that water is removed from the stool. So ideally the amount of time it takes to go from a liquid to a solid of the right consistency ends up being the same amount of time it takes for the stool to move through the colon. If it takes way too long it comes out hard and dry. If it goes a bit too fast it comes out loose. If you have an acute illness where the colon needs to flush itself out it can then dump more water into the colon to get things out, but that is when you get repeated bouts of watery diarrhea. It takes a lot of coordination to get the stool delivered to the end at the exact perfect consistency. Even in healthy humans you sometimes get stool a bit on the soft or hard side of things. In IBS that coordination (all done by the nervous system of the gut) can be a bit off, and it isn't always off in the exact same way every moment of every day so you find this variable stool thing going on for most of us. Now some people are always loose all the time, and some people tend to be constipated all the time, but for a lot of people every stool is just a bit different and that is just part of IBS.


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## TanaG (Jul 11, 2009)

I see.... I rarely get more than 1 BM a day, even if it's loose. And it is always at about the same hour, each and every day. Lately it's been more or less on the normal side I think, it is just these 50/50 stools that worried me. I asked a doctor and he said it all depends on what I eat and that it can be that the first part of the stool is older food and the second part is new food. Honestly I find my conversations with the doctors more and more annoying because they just don't help! I feel more and more like they have no idea what they're talking about and they all think it's rather impossible that you feel just ok for some time or days or whatever and then suddenly you have problems, also just for some time or for a few hours. I think this is the one thing that drives you crazy if you have IBS. My father insists to take me to this new GI doctor who's supposed to be very good. I will go however with almost no hope that he will be able to help in any way


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

If you only go 1 time a day then you do have food from different meals all in the same BM (unless you only eat one meal a day).That can also play a role. The stool from different meals may not be completely mixed with each other and you may eat differnet foods (and some foods normally loosen stools in all humans even in perfect health).Be happy you have good days.IBS doesn't have to be equally bad all the time (but it can be for some of us).Most of the "worse than IBS" things people are sure they must have because they can't believe IBS could make them feel like this are way more likely to be every day all the time (or at least for long stretches of time).IBS can be better or worse based on a lot of things.Which foods you eat, how you ate them, in what amounts and in what combinations (so a large heavy high fat meal may be bad even if you are OK with many of the same items in a lower fat mini-meal).Also every single other physical and mental stress you have can set it off. Unless you live in a paradise where the weather is perfectly warm all the time and you don't usually get strong storm fronts then the weather can set you off. Where you are in your menstrual cycle can set it off. How much sleep you got last night and was it good quality sleep or not. Did you get enough exercise the last couple of days or too much. Did you have any strong emotions or anything at all that you worried about.Many things can make a good IBS day into a bad one. A lot of them are things you have no control over. That it drives you nuts that you don't know if today will be a good day or not, that can be enough to set off a bad day.Also, the colon is not equally active all the time in everyone every day. Your colon has active times and not active times and IBS tends to act up (if it is going to act up) during the active times. It is normal for IBS to be inconsistent. Mornings (around the time you get up) and after meals are common times for IBS to act up even if you are perfect in between. This is not unusual for IBS. This is what IBS is like, especially on the milder end of things. Even when you have some IBS symptoms all the time they tend to be worse during the times the colon is more active and tends to be less when the colon is a rest even if you never get any time with no symptoms.


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## Diana63 (Oct 20, 2009)

Hello TanaGMy stools are always different shape,sizes and consistency,which i find really strange,oh for a normal BM,no idea what that is!Always told it is my IBS.


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## TanaG (Jul 11, 2009)

When I have a bad day I normally have problems at night, maybe an hour before I go to sleep, gas and farts, discomfort and some cramps. It passes in about half an hour as if it was never there, once the gas is all out. Then I have problems in the morning right after I wake up and then again nothing till the evening comes. Funny thing is...and I noticed that...if for example I have a really bad day and I go to sleep...once I fall asleep...or even in between sleep and reality, the problems are gone. If I wake up in the middle of the night for whatever reason...they might start again but only minutes after I woke up. As if once I am asleep they go on a pause. I started not to be sure what a normal stool is either. Fact is, when I didn't have IBS, I never looked at it....so I have no idea. I know though it is not normal to experience discomfort and cramps and pass so much gas and that is the thing that makes a difference for me from normality.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Those symptoms are from the IBS, they are "normal" for someone with IBS.The colon rests at night when you rest so it is "normal" for IBSers to have it calm down when they sleep.Evening is often a problem because people tend to eat a bigger heavier meal and whatever gas you made from earlier in the day gets pushed to the end after dinner when the colon is more active.It is also more active around the time you get up so morning problems with nothing during the day until you ate dinner is not unusual.It isn't normal, but it is very typical of mild to moderate IBS.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Stool_Scale shows what normal stools are supposed to be like.


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## TanaG (Jul 11, 2009)

hahahahahha!.....Nice interesting chart! Oh my God I had no idea they actually pulled one off for poo







))))))))Besides...taking a look at it...oh boy I had all the stool consistencies possible







)) But I have to admit, these days I am a lot on the normal stool side....this before the new year party where I have no idea what I ate, but I've been sick since and I also vomited that very morning. Nice year start!


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## TanaG (Jul 11, 2009)

Well today I had something between types 4 and 5 of the Bristol scale. Guess everybody with IBS would consider this acceptable...


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## Diana63 (Oct 20, 2009)

I can pass every type of the stools on the stool chart,every day different for me,apart from the straining,no idea why i have the need to strain with soft stools and even with Diahorrea.Bowels are a complete mystery,one thing for sure,i am not normal!!


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## TanaG (Jul 11, 2009)

LOL....did you take a look at that chart? Is in one of the replies Kathleen left in here. It's really funny...there are drawings of the poo







)


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## Diana63 (Oct 20, 2009)

Oh yes! Have seen the chart.I bet a lot of people dont know about different shapes/types poo you can get!!


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