Colorectal Cancer Community

I have also suffered trying to find my "new" normal. My reversal surgery of my ostomy bag was 15 months ago. I had a lot of ups and downs in the first 6 months. Everytime it seemed like things were getting better things would get worse. It was like everytime I would take a step forward I would take two steps back. It was very frustrating. In the 7th month I started keeping track of how many times a day I went and recorded any pain that I might have been in. After a month and a half of doing this I went to my primary and she tried a few things that did not seem to help, in fact one thing I tried actually caused me to have accidents in the middle of the night. Then I started to have some bleeding so my primary told me to go back to my GI doctor who was the one who actually diagnosed me. She told me that it was not normal for me to still be going so many times in a day (anywhere from 6 to 15 a day). She said we had a few options to try. She said it was going to be trial and error because what works for one person may not work for another. Well I was very lucky the first thing I tried worked. She put me on Robinul Forte 2mg. I started taking 2 a day one in the morning and one at night. It worked too well because I didn't go for 5 days. She cut me back to a half a pill a day. It really has made a big difference. I still have bad days here and there but nothing like it had been. My cancer was right above the sphincter muscle.

As far as diet goes you are doing the right thing with the greasy foods. What has helped me is to stay away from everything dairy. I use soy milk and cheese. Other than that I don't know what else to tell you about diet. There are things that I will eat all the time and then all of a sudden one day it will just not agree with me but then I will try again and it will be fine.

I just wanted to ask what is Tenismus? I tried looking it up but could not find out any info on it.

I wish you all the best. If you try any of my suggestions I hope you will post again to let me know if it helps you.

--Coping in South Florida

I mispelled the word, it is tenesmus. My surgeon described it as a spasming sphincter, which I was dealing with immediately after I got home from the hospital. For me it was this constant feeling of needing to empty my bowel. I was going to the bathroom 20-30 times a day. Now I can go a day or so with no bowel movements and then have 6 in a day. Thanks for sharing your experience and I wish you continued good health.

When I was looking up symptoms of tenesmus I found an article on "Radiation Enteritis". It was very informative. I looked it up on WebMD. On page 2 and 3 of the article it talks about food to avoid and food that is encouraged. Some on the list to avoid I had already figured out on my own. I'm gonna give the rest of the do's and don'ts a try to see if this works. I hope this helps. Keep me posted.

--Coping in South Florida

TammyR,
Do you have to keep taking the Robinul Forte 2mg in order to reduce your bowel frequency?

I had my ileostomy bag removed two weeks ago and just the last two days, I had to go BM about 12 times/day. Stool is only small amount each time. All the wiping caused my bottom to be burning sore.
Sai