CRAP: An IBS story
Hello, TMI, I'm here to give you another poop story to feast on.
Triggers for emetophobes
The majority of my source of TMI comes from the fact that I have IBS with constipation. I've had it since I was born, and absolutely nothing I do helps. Every food effects it, no foods help it, and certain methods of 'care' don't do anything anymore. I've tried everything under the sun to get it regulated, and nothing short of a laxative once every two weeks does much.
I've tried pure psyllium seed husks, and despite drinking enough water, the last time I tried them I was dangerously close to impacted. That treatment worked for maybe two weeks. When I was younger, my pediatrician told my parents to feed me laxatives and stool softeners multiple times a day for a while to see if that didn't regulate me. I took the adult dose of milk of magnesia (liquid) twice a day, and sennecot stool softeners at night. Stool softeners no longer work.
So, I just live with it. I crap once a week, if I'm lucky.
I am also lacking in health insurance, so no doctor's appointments for me.
I've told this story before, but it's been a little while and we have some new players.
There is, however, an upside to this story.
About a month ago, I moved to Korea. In the way of medicine and doctors, things tend to be a lot cheaper, and they have medicines here that we don't have in America. My girlfriend had to go to the doctor for a nasty upper sinus infection that left her spitting blood up in her snot. The doctor gave her a prescription for a few medicines and sent her to the pharmacy, where she mentioned that she thought she had a fungal infection in her belly button.
Remember, we're in Korea.
Girlfriend's Korean is... decent and enough to get us around, for the most part, but when it comes to Doctors offices and pharmacies, it's lacking. We're learning, really.
Anyway, she attempts to get across to the pharmacist that her belly button has been wet, itchy and just generally unpleasant for about a week, and the pharmacist hands her two boxes of medicine and writes the directions in English on the box for what she needs to do in order to take them.
Girlfriend comes home from the doctor, takes her noon round of medications and promptly passes out, giving me the request to look up what the pills are. Fortunately, it's not incredibly difficult due to these particular manufactures writing the English name of the product on the box. After some googling around, I get the drug names from the products and flip through my drug book.
The drugs are: Trimebutine Maleate and Acidophilus. Neither of those are for fungal infections. However, they are both for people with stomach problems.
The Acidophilus was expensive, and it doesn't work on me anyway, so I haven't been taking it. I looked up Trimebutine. I'd never heard of it before then, and what information I did find was pretty limited. My drug book is old and Trimebutine wasn't in there, so I did some googling. Took me a bit to find all of the information I was looking for (drug interactions, side effects, etc), but I did.
Trimebutine is for sufferers with IBS w. Constipation and IBS with diarrhea. Which confused me a little, because it also has a weak opiate effect, and, well, opiates tend to back you up. But, these aren't actually opiates, they just mimic the effect. /nerd
I'm desperate, and willing to try anything once, so I followed the instructions of 2 tabs 1-3 times a day. The box only had ten tabs in it, so I went with the once a day thing, just to see.
Day one? Nothing, but I was super gassy all fucking day.
Day two? Nothing.
Day three (today)? EVERYTHING.
I woke up this morning feeling SUPER GASSY. I tried to hold it in while my girlfriend snuggled up to me before school, and had I moved the wrong way, I would have released a horrendous gas cloud of pure death.
When she left, I let one rip and gagged a little. I had to open a window it was so rank. It was like a weeks worth of food had been shoved up my asshole and left to rot, along with a pungent side of carcass on an Arizona blacktop in August.
Then I felt the uncommon but still familiar tingles of 'you need to shit' pushing at my bowels so I jumped out of bed, naked as a jaybird and flew to the bathroom with a blanket in hand.
(Wet room for a bathroom = fucking freezing)
I wrapped the blanket around myself and sat down with a determined face and stared at the wall for maybe five minutes before anything happened.
It wasn't significant, but it wasn't rock solid. It was semi smooth and the exit was relatively painless for someone who hadn't shit in five days. I was thrilled, though mildly irritated and half asleep. I cleaned up carefully, flushed and trudged back to bed where I passed out for another three hours.
I woke up with my body essentially punching itself in the gut and screaming GET THEE TO A SHITTER.
Round two commenced and I rushed back to the bathroom with my trusty blanket in tow, and a pair of pants. I made myself comfortable and my bowels proceeded to evacuate themselves in the smoothest, painless and non messy after-five-days shit I've ever taken. Dare I say, it was almost pleasant.
Almost, except for the stench of death, foetor and decay that seemed to surround me like a warm, but deadly hug. Usually after five days, my shits smell stale. Old, maybe, but the chances of killing small children with just a whiff are pretty much non existent.
I have made some pretty rocking faces of disgust when the occasion calls for it, but never have I gagged and vomitted at the smell of my own shit until today.
My body decided to give me a small break in terms of my ass. I had remembered the horrible stench of my farts earlier and had plugged my nose accordingly. I'm not sure what possessed me to unplug my nose, but I did to reach around and give a courtesy flush.
The smell hit me and my stomach rolled as I pressed down on the flusher.
Being in a wet room with no trash can and not wanting to risk switching positions to vomit, my only choice was to puke on the floor. So, I did. I'd rather clean up puke than shit any day.
TMI, I hate vomitting. I'm not emetophobic, by any means, but I hate vomitting. I especially hate vomitting on an empty stomach. I did it a lot in high school as a stress response. It sucked then, and it sucked today.
Vomitting for me is not easy. Not as difficult as shitting, mind, but it's a long and tiring process. If you've ever heard a cat puke, it's kind of like that for me. There's a lot of noisy gagging before anything comes up.
So I had this nice pile of spit, mucus and bile between my feet.
Not too long after that, my bowels decided they were empty. I cleaned myself up, watched my feet, stood up, flushed and cleaned the bathroom floor by grabbing the shower head and spraying the spitbilemucus mixture down the drain.
Then I passed out in bed for another hour and a half to recover from that extremely tiring adventure.
All in all, I'm liking this new medicine, even if it turns me into a stink machine. Better yet, it's $1.50 for ten pills. I really hope it keeps working, TMI, for this could be a life saver for me.
And that's my story. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm starving.
Triggers for emetophobes
The majority of my source of TMI comes from the fact that I have IBS with constipation. I've had it since I was born, and absolutely nothing I do helps. Every food effects it, no foods help it, and certain methods of 'care' don't do anything anymore. I've tried everything under the sun to get it regulated, and nothing short of a laxative once every two weeks does much.
I've tried pure psyllium seed husks, and despite drinking enough water, the last time I tried them I was dangerously close to impacted. That treatment worked for maybe two weeks. When I was younger, my pediatrician told my parents to feed me laxatives and stool softeners multiple times a day for a while to see if that didn't regulate me. I took the adult dose of milk of magnesia (liquid) twice a day, and sennecot stool softeners at night. Stool softeners no longer work.
So, I just live with it. I crap once a week, if I'm lucky.
I am also lacking in health insurance, so no doctor's appointments for me.
I've told this story before, but it's been a little while and we have some new players.
There is, however, an upside to this story.
About a month ago, I moved to Korea. In the way of medicine and doctors, things tend to be a lot cheaper, and they have medicines here that we don't have in America. My girlfriend had to go to the doctor for a nasty upper sinus infection that left her spitting blood up in her snot. The doctor gave her a prescription for a few medicines and sent her to the pharmacy, where she mentioned that she thought she had a fungal infection in her belly button.
Remember, we're in Korea.
Girlfriend's Korean is... decent and enough to get us around, for the most part, but when it comes to Doctors offices and pharmacies, it's lacking. We're learning, really.
Anyway, she attempts to get across to the pharmacist that her belly button has been wet, itchy and just generally unpleasant for about a week, and the pharmacist hands her two boxes of medicine and writes the directions in English on the box for what she needs to do in order to take them.
Girlfriend comes home from the doctor, takes her noon round of medications and promptly passes out, giving me the request to look up what the pills are. Fortunately, it's not incredibly difficult due to these particular manufactures writing the English name of the product on the box. After some googling around, I get the drug names from the products and flip through my drug book.
The drugs are: Trimebutine Maleate and Acidophilus. Neither of those are for fungal infections. However, they are both for people with stomach problems.
The Acidophilus was expensive, and it doesn't work on me anyway, so I haven't been taking it. I looked up Trimebutine. I'd never heard of it before then, and what information I did find was pretty limited. My drug book is old and Trimebutine wasn't in there, so I did some googling. Took me a bit to find all of the information I was looking for (drug interactions, side effects, etc), but I did.
Trimebutine is for sufferers with IBS w. Constipation and IBS with diarrhea. Which confused me a little, because it also has a weak opiate effect, and, well, opiates tend to back you up. But, these aren't actually opiates, they just mimic the effect. /nerd
I'm desperate, and willing to try anything once, so I followed the instructions of 2 tabs 1-3 times a day. The box only had ten tabs in it, so I went with the once a day thing, just to see.
Day one? Nothing, but I was super gassy all fucking day.
Day two? Nothing.
Day three (today)? EVERYTHING.
I woke up this morning feeling SUPER GASSY. I tried to hold it in while my girlfriend snuggled up to me before school, and had I moved the wrong way, I would have released a horrendous gas cloud of pure death.
When she left, I let one rip and gagged a little. I had to open a window it was so rank. It was like a weeks worth of food had been shoved up my asshole and left to rot, along with a pungent side of carcass on an Arizona blacktop in August.
Then I felt the uncommon but still familiar tingles of 'you need to shit' pushing at my bowels so I jumped out of bed, naked as a jaybird and flew to the bathroom with a blanket in hand.
(Wet room for a bathroom = fucking freezing)
I wrapped the blanket around myself and sat down with a determined face and stared at the wall for maybe five minutes before anything happened.
It wasn't significant, but it wasn't rock solid. It was semi smooth and the exit was relatively painless for someone who hadn't shit in five days. I was thrilled, though mildly irritated and half asleep. I cleaned up carefully, flushed and trudged back to bed where I passed out for another three hours.
I woke up with my body essentially punching itself in the gut and screaming GET THEE TO A SHITTER.
Round two commenced and I rushed back to the bathroom with my trusty blanket in tow, and a pair of pants. I made myself comfortable and my bowels proceeded to evacuate themselves in the smoothest, painless and non messy after-five-days shit I've ever taken. Dare I say, it was almost pleasant.
Almost, except for the stench of death, foetor and decay that seemed to surround me like a warm, but deadly hug. Usually after five days, my shits smell stale. Old, maybe, but the chances of killing small children with just a whiff are pretty much non existent.
I have made some pretty rocking faces of disgust when the occasion calls for it, but never have I gagged and vomitted at the smell of my own shit until today.
My body decided to give me a small break in terms of my ass. I had remembered the horrible stench of my farts earlier and had plugged my nose accordingly. I'm not sure what possessed me to unplug my nose, but I did to reach around and give a courtesy flush.
The smell hit me and my stomach rolled as I pressed down on the flusher.
Being in a wet room with no trash can and not wanting to risk switching positions to vomit, my only choice was to puke on the floor. So, I did. I'd rather clean up puke than shit any day.
TMI, I hate vomitting. I'm not emetophobic, by any means, but I hate vomitting. I especially hate vomitting on an empty stomach. I did it a lot in high school as a stress response. It sucked then, and it sucked today.
Vomitting for me is not easy. Not as difficult as shitting, mind, but it's a long and tiring process. If you've ever heard a cat puke, it's kind of like that for me. There's a lot of noisy gagging before anything comes up.
So I had this nice pile of spit, mucus and bile between my feet.
Not too long after that, my bowels decided they were empty. I cleaned myself up, watched my feet, stood up, flushed and cleaned the bathroom floor by grabbing the shower head and spraying the spitbilemucus mixture down the drain.
Then I passed out in bed for another hour and a half to recover from that extremely tiring adventure.
All in all, I'm liking this new medicine, even if it turns me into a stink machine. Better yet, it's $1.50 for ten pills. I really hope it keeps working, TMI, for this could be a life saver for me.
And that's my story. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm starving.