Malcolm, don’t ever, ever, ever pull Cass’s finger. Ever!!! My brother and I will cheerfully (and graphically) describe the toxicity that can emminate from that young lady. . . Hell, most of the drive back to Edmonton from T-1 was done with an open driver’s window despite the chill. . .
On a more serious note I think the support thread would be a great idea. While I don’t have many issues personally (aside from the CDC visiting my house every couple of days) you never know what might “pop up”.
Perhaps a support thread titled something other than COLONOSCOPY would encourage more people to actually read the thread. I had no idea anyone would respond when I started it. Now everyone knows Cass has stinky farts and I have the shits.
Every few days, I will let a room-clearing, wallpaper peeling, hazmat needing fart. Those days when I do that, it’s not just 1 fart. It’s like 10 a day, if not 30 or so. Seriously. I was sitting at a computer once with my feet propped up on the chair next to it, and I farted. Well, the breeze from the A/C wasn’t blowing my way, so I didn’t smell it. I ended up clearing out 2 bays of people in our lab (NIH style lab, if you know what that is). It was that bad. I couldn’t go near anyone the rest of the day, because they would run.
Sometimes, I get diarrhea for absolutely no reason at all. I’ll just be sitting here, typing on my comp, and WHAM!! I get the runs. WTF? It makes no sense. My gut never hurts, but it just bugs me. I get the shits when I get nervous too, but that’s just nerves, and I know that.
Here’s a more important question: does your stool ever seem to have mucus in it or have a mucusy (sp? word?) quality to it?
If no, it’s probably just normal. If yes, it could be Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Most people have a touch of it at one time or another. Your gut can just slow down (potentially causing stanky gas) or speed up (causing urgent, surprise bathroom trips) at will.
I hate you… Nah, just kidding. I love you because of that lovely diet A&W Rootbeer you bought for me at T2.
And ok, YES. I stink. BUT NOT ALL THE TIME!!!
Whatever.
I can avoid it if I don’t eat those foods that I listed. However at T1, the first t-cell gathering, I ate 3 protein bars, all the veggies from the veggie tray, 10 oz of beef tenderloin, loads of yellow and red peppers and gawd knows what else. And as everyone in Edmonton knows, when I’m hungry I can REALLY pack a ton of food into my little body. (Remember the 4 boxes of really addictive chinese cookies I ate all at once at T2??, geeze ) But, then everyone around me suffers… Sorry Craig and Stu. Really I am.
Anyway, JWright: You sound like you suffer from IBS. Your spontaneous diarrhea is from an uncontrollable spasm in your GI tract. Diet or lifestyle modifications can sometimes cause this, but other times it may need pharmaceutical attention. Do you notice that it happens after you eat certain foods, or when you get stressed? For example, my friend who has IBS went through a terrible time when he was going through his divorce. He knew exactely where every bathroom was located whenever he went into ANY building. Now that his stress levels are decreased he’s much MUCH better.
And JWright, your gas issues are usually diet related. Yes, you might have to cut out protein bars (because of the milk ingredients) and you’ll defintley want to avoid the other gassy foods that I mentioned above.
If you can list out most of the foods you eat on a regular basis, then I can help you pinpoint which ones are common gas culprits. (Trust me, I’ve looked very deeply into this subject). Even gum can be an enemy (because of the alcohol sugars).
Naw man, never have mucous in my excrement. When I look though, I can definitely see pieces of food that I ate previously (red pepper skin, peanuts, etc). Those peanuts sure hurt if they are on the outside (ok ok, TMI). I don’t think that I can truly correlate it to food. Here lately, it’s gone away, but I haven’t been eating nearly as much protein as I should. Maybe that’s it - too much protein. It could be.
