# Yellow Stools after bug



## GUTted

Hello, does anyone have any idea if this is serious or not...I'm recovering from either a tummy bug or food poisoning, (not 100% sure which), and my stools have become yellow with lots of yellow mucus. I don't know whether something has gone badly wrong or I'm just still recovering.On saturday 17th June I had severe vomiting and diarrhea all day, I couldn't keep anything down and I was vomiting lots of bile. On sunday 18th I had a bit more diarrhea and vomiting but not nearly as bad as the saturday. I then started to eat pretty bland food - plain rice, chips/fries, dry gluten free cereal, spelt spagetti etc. I did not go to the toilet either monday 19th or tuesday 20th, but on wednesday 21st after a cup of tea the yellow mucusy stools began.It's now 25th June and they're still here. I've still been eating very plain food but I'm starting to try and bring a bit more food back into my diet because I have been feeling very fatigued and spaced, so I want to get some vitamins and nutrients back into my diet.I suffer with urgency problems anyway and possibly SIBO. Any help would be appreciated, especially as I'm on holiday now and it's being spoilt by the fact I can't eat/drink anything I was looking forward to! Cheers


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## Kathleen M.

Generally not something serious.All stool starts yellow or green from the bile.The GI infection may have upset the normal flora including effecting the population of bacteria that take that initial yellow or green color (depending on what color your bile happens to be) and change it to brown.So if that population took a hit (got flushed out by the diarrhea, got displaced by the infection in anyway, etc.) there could be fewer bacteria right now to do the color change. If you don't have those bacteria, your stool doesn't change color, and one reason why there is a color known as baby poop gold as it takes awhile before infants have enough of those bacteria to produce brown stools.Also after a GI infection you may not be back to normal timing. So if the stools are still moving through a bit faster than usual there is less time for the bacteria to change the stools from yellow to brown.Mucus can pick up color from the stool, and if things are still healing up in there you could be making more mucus than usual. It is a non-specific "I'm not happy" type of response. So if you aren't having symptoms that are worrisome (like fever, vomiting, blood in the stools) I would tend to ride this out and see how things heal up.


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## Jeffrey Roberts

The only thing I would add to what Kathleen wrote is to ask if you had been on an antibiotic within the last 4-6 months? If so, then you should see your doctor about a possible overgrowth of Clostridium Difficile.


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## GUTted

Thanks for the quick reply. Can you suggest anything I could do, or anything I should/should not eat to help speed up my recovery? I'm already on FODMAP so I don't really know where to go from here.Another complication this has thrown up is I had already been pescribed a week's trial course of antibiotics to help my SIBO, which started 6 years ago after a very similar illness. So now I don't know what to do - I don't know whether I should wait till I'm better from this infection THEN take the antibiotics, or take the antibiotics whether I'm better from this or not?!If I rang my GI doc's secretary and asked to speak to my doc, I probably wouldn't get a call back from the doc for about about a month, damned NHS.


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## Kathleen M.

Can you talk to the pharmacist/chemist? Sometimes they understand the side effects better so might guide you as to wait if you are too nauseous right now and the drug increases that.Sometimes taking them a different way (like with food) can be OK and reduce that kind of side effect.You might look at how much fat you eat on the low fodmap diet as sometimes increased fat can speed things up so a lower fat diet may be better, but you'd have to play with that. Also things like caffeine and alcohol tend to speed things up.Doing things that help to relax yourself (meditation or reading, taking a bath) may help as well. Stressing out won't.


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## GUTted

No, I haven't been on any antibiotics yet.My concern about when to take the antibiotics isn't because I feel nauseous, my concern is that if this is a different type of bacteria to the one that started my IBS six years ago, the antibiotic the doc has pescribed might only work against one of the bacterias, which could in turn strengthen the bacteria it doesn't work against. Having said that it's only a one week trial of antibiotic, so if it's not the right one then the bacteria hopefully wouldn't have time to strengthen to it.My lasting symptom now from my recent bug is the constant sensation of urgency, but not neccessarily needing to go to the loo. And actually for a while now I've had a fecal urgency sensation when I only need to pass wind, it's like my bottom can't tell the difference between wind and solids?!


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## Jeffrey Roberts

The constant sensation of urgency and not being able to tell the difference between wind and solids is something that I have experienced. Though I have had that with an overgrowth of clostridium difficile caused by taking an antibiotic, conditions called tenesmus or perhaps proctitis may be the cause. You might want to see your doctor about that. These are treatable with suppositories or an enema.


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## GUTted

Thanks for the info. I Googled those conditions but they seem more extreme than what I'm experiencing. One last question, where is mucus produced?


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## Kathleen M.

I think mucus can be produced anywhere along the entire GI tract.I don't think you can pinpoint where it is from when you see it come out the back end.


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## breakaway

Kathleen M. said:


> So if that population took a hit (got flushed out by the diarrhea, got displaced by the infection in anyway, etc.) there could be fewer bacteria right now to do the color change. If you don't have those bacteria, your stool doesn't change color, and one reason why there is a color known as baby poop gold as it takes awhile before infants have enough of those bacteria to produce brown stools.


What would be your recommendation on what to do? Do the displaced bacteria have any real purpose?


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## Kathleen M.

I don't think there is much you can do, these aren't bacteria that come in the probiotic pill, although if your bacterial flora took enough of a hit it may not be a bad idea to take a probiotic even if that won't make your stool the perfect color when loose to formed and not runny/watery diarrhea.Having a healthy flora in there can help keep the bad bacteria from getting going, so it isn't a bad idea to try to get friendlies in there. The probiotics are the only ones of the many types of normal healthy flora you can buy, so if you feel you need to do something that is what I would do.Whatever bacteria change the color are pretty common and most everyone gets filled up with them without much intervention (happens to babies without any specific treatment, they just naturally pick them up).So I would just let nature take it's course on this. Worrying and fretting over the color not immediately turning back to normal probably isn't good for the healing up process. Try to just go with the flow of it.


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