My Bowels Are Trying To Tell Me Something

It's been well-documented, my struggles to take regular craps.

But this weekend, something remarkable happened. I went out to Pittsburgh for a weekend, ostensibly to meet some people to ask them to write me letters of recommendation for grad school, but really to hang out with friends. Soul night, huge costume party, lots of alcohol and more friends than I have here - amazing. A theme of the weekend was people making the argument that I should in fact move to Pittsburgh. My rational side was weighing both sides of the argument (anti: intertia, pro: happiness).

But meanwhile my subconscious, acting in concert with my bowels, was trying to make it clear where it stands on the issue. In a span of 2 days I had FOUR, count 'em, FOUR solid, relieving poops. And usually travel disrupts digestion in people with IBS.



Four giant turds might have just made an important life decision on my behalf. Pittsburgh!

Barack Obama and My Bowels

It had been many weeks of straining. I was straight up constipated.

But then something happened. Just in the past few days things in my belly have started looking up, like Obama's numbers in Virginia. In a span of four days I had two of what I'm calling, in Obama spirit, "fierce urgency of now" dumps. I think you can figure out what I mean by this. You feel a rumbling in the tummy, you stifle it, and it flares up, no longer willing to be ignored. For the latter of these two I was at an open house at Columbia, and I defiled their public bathroom with an enormous and ridiculously relieving number two. And in the days since I've had almost daily poops, but these have been a bit more troubling since they are almost black in color and really quite stinky.



I don't know what to attribute this to. The Phillies? Obama? Either way though, it's good news.

Reaching for the Stars, Hoping for a Ceiling

I wish I could take an impressive dump everyday.

Have sown; trying to reap

There's a loose pattern: I go jogging, do some crunches and push-ups, let sit some hours, and voila!- a bowel movement. Sometimes, sometimes not. I did the exercise bit. I could really use a nice deuce right now.

Reminiscing

So, while I was on the pot earlier today, trying to channel Obama and hope my bowels into regularity, I had something like a flashback. I thought back to the whole gut transit study that Dr. Parkman at Temple University's Digestive Disease Center scheduled me for. I chuckled when I remembered that it involved eating a "radioactive egg sandwich" that was spiked with radioactivity. This test is designed to chart the progress of a typical meal as it meanders down my irregularly lethargic digestive tract, so the doctors can get a better since of where the major point of blockage is. Because if it gets stuck in my esophagus that would be treated differently than if it gets stuck in the lower bowel, say.



Anyway, I was fine was this test, a) because I get to eat a radioactive egg sandwich, and b) I felt like it was good information to have. My constipation and incessant bloating told me there was definitely some bottleneck point, and knowing that would expedite my recovery. Back then, you know, I was hoping for recovery. But, for some reason, after analyzing the pictures that were taken over the course of four days, the doctors concluded there was nothing abnormal. And for that week, they were right. It baffled me that during the four days of the test my bowels stopped acting up. By the way, this mysterious behavior led me to speculate that there was a mental element to my sickness- that since my mind believed with these tests being taken that steps were being taken that would lead to recovery, it got soothed and let the poop flow.

But as I was sitting on the toilet, straining, skimming The Economist and hoping for my first satisfying bowel movement in over a week, I was wondering why they couldn't trace the movement now. Clearly, it isn't "normal." In a lot of psychological studies I know there is a phenomenon where the investigator has to take what the test subject says with a grain of salt, knowing that responses might be altered with the presence of the investigator. No objective point of view, etc. I need a whole gut transit study redo. And not just because I want more radioactive scrambled eggs.

State of Digestion: 10/6

Breakfast: 1 bowl Kashi Honey Almond Flax cereal
Contains 8 grams of fiber, 4 grams of soluble fiber and 4 grams of insoluble fiber. Apparently, insoluble fiber is better for constipation.

Lunch: Chicken Tikka Masala from Jaipur, a bit of Eggplant Curry
Normally, this would have been a dish I would have shied away from. Oily, spicy, meaty. But during this recent digestive detente I've decided to push the envelope. I even had taco bell last week. Let's see if I wind up any worse for the wear.

I followed this up with one small dose, about 3.4 grams, of Metamucil, orange flavor. My doctor recommended about 20 grams of non-dietary fiber supplements per day to retrain my intestines, with the goal of eventual resynchronization. Remind me, I'll show you the hand motions he used to demonstrate this to me.

**BOWEL MOVEMENT ALERT** The bowel movement I had after lunch was strained. Maybe all the beer I drank on Friday at the Barbary constipated me up. And for what? Frustration, the beauty of it.


Snack: Small Pumpkin Spice Latte (bless fall drinks) and 2 Metamucil Fiber Wafers
Again, coffee is something I'm trying to avoid, especially on consecutive days. But I was feeling really sluggish at the library so I splurged. So freakin delicious too. Those wafers, though, are terrible. The 2 wafers are another dose of Psyllium fiber, 3.4 grams. Running tally, 6.8 grams.


Dinner: Dokadi(?), dunno the translation
Good, light dinner. Easy to digest. Perfect for when I feel particularly blimpish. I had to take it easy tonight because I was scheduled to play a tennis match at nine.

**BOWEL MOVEMENT ALERT** I had a somewhat more satisfying number two on my way out the door for my match. I thought it would freshen me up for my match. Alas. I played terribly. My opponent didn't put any pace on the ball, but never made any errors, and with all the time to think about my strokes I overthought and mishit eventually. Fuckin brutal. My forehand was especially pathetic. Though I redeemed myself with a doubles win (my opponent was my partner).

Upon my disgraceful return home I munched on some ridiculously tasty chocolate covered pretzels. Again, in the bygone era of lactose paranoia I definitely would have avoided even the modest amount of milk in the chocolate coating. Now that I think about it, I've been really good at depriving myself of pleasure during this whodunnit of a stomach disease/disorder/malady. I accompanied that with my daily Activia, vanilla flavored. In my endless grasping for a remedy, I noticed that the day I went back on the probiotics I had a brilliantly satisfying dump. This could have been pure coincidence rather than causation, but I'm desperate. I think when I was regularly taking probiotics I was more regular, though still bloated, but again, who knows. Desperation.

Nightcap: Large Dose of Metamucil, about 6.8 grams.
That gets me at about 13.6 grams for the day, the number I've been around for a couple weeks. And, this is true- I feel better lately. Slightly more regular, still bloated, but less sluggish and mentally inert. I really hope I've really turned a corner.

Bedtime: 10 milligrams of amitriptylene.
At 100 grams this drug is used as an antidepressant. But since there is a hormonal element to the body's movement of food through the intestines, people with more serious irritable bowel syndrome have to take drugs for the nervous system in addition to fiber therapy and diet modification. This, I think, is the real reason I feel much better lately. Hopefully that's a light at the end of this fucking tunnel.