Okay so I am a year post and this was my first real experience with constipation ever beyond a day immediately after some of my surgeries. Well it’s induced by all the meds I’m on for something else I’m sure BUT, given that I produce so much more waste it backs up way faster than the doctors expect. I ended up at the emergency room and they were about to send me home because it hadn’t been that many days until the CT came back and I was so full that they had to admit me overnight so they could monitor me while taking round the clock laxatives to make me go. Much more than is typically considered safe. So that is my cautionary take to not wait too long and be certain they really really listen when you say you had bariatric surgery if your bowels were bypassed and get imaging!! Now here is where I need help. I went, all throughout the evening and night and more this morning and finally had a somewhat mushy movement before they released me but while I have to continue on these meds they believe is causing this I am supposed to stay on a preventative dose. They say 2 stool softeners and a cap of miralax daily. Well. I took the stool softener and I’m drinking the miralax now, but I’m scared. Is this possible to be too much and make me have diarrhea so bad that I can’t stop that, get dehydrated and end up right back in the hospital? I don’t think I should try to correct it with immodiom if it does happen. Just curious if this sounds like a typical maintenance dose for someone with a surgery that bypasses the intestines. I know I’ve seen plenty of people on here talk about it in the last I just don’t recall doses.

Did you have bypass or sleeve? Diarrhoea would be obvious and they will taper the meds themselves and usually it stops within a day after you decrease/ stop meds

12 hours ago, Fars said:

Did you have bypass or sleeve? Diarrhoea would be obvious and they will taper the meds themselves and usually it stops within a day after you decrease/ stop meds

I had SADI and I had loose stools if anything (that’s mostly when I eat bad) for the last year BUT, my cancer treatment caused acute kidney issues so I’m on a ton of meds hopefully for only a month or so while they recover and one or a combo of them caused severe constipation. Thing is I produce so much more stool now I assume because of the bypass portion of the procedure that it backs up fast when you are constipated. My CT showed my bowels were incredibly full. I know that some people do have constipation from the surgery though and have to be on a maintenance dose of laxatives for it. I was just wondering if two stool softeners and a cap of miralax sounds about right.

I wonder if maybe it’s another one of those cases of working out what dose combination works for you. It may be the two stool softeners and the miralax they’ve suggested or it might be one stool softener & the miralax or just one or the other.

I also wonder if some other more natural intervention could be added, like that smooth tea or prune juice, so you don’t need as much of the softeners & miralax.

So is this maintenance regime a forever thing or just for while you’re on the meds for your kidneys?

38 minutes ago, Arabesque said:

I wonder if maybe it’s another one of those cases of working out what dose combination works for you. It may be the two stool softeners and the miralax they’ve suggested or it might be one stool softener & the miralax or just one or the other.

I also wonder if some other more natural intervention could be added, like that smooth tea or prune juice, so you don’t need as much of the softeners & miralax.

So is this maintenance regime a forever thing or just for while you’re on the meds for your kidneys?

Hopefully it’s just during the meds for the kidneys. I assumed it was related to the meds and they do too since it started just as I was released from the hospital for the kidney issue. I should 🤞 be off many of the new meds in a few weeks here and the one they think is the likely major culprit which is the steroids I am weaning off hopefully in two weeks. I am on a pretty hefty dose which is not ideal after bariatric surgeries but it was unavoidable

I think you are right, though, it’s just a matter of working it out what works for me and I’m thankful that I have the holiday weekend where I can stay home because the three doses was definitely too much. Today I just did one stool softener because i already had too much in my system, but tomorrow I think I will try one SS and half a cap of MiraLAX and see how that goes. The smooth move tea is a great thing for me to ask about too. I actually have some here that a friend put in a gift bag with lots of OTC stuff she researched and said I may need during chemo to just have on hand. They say I have recovered enough function that I should be okay with normal doses, but the laxatives are not great for my kidneys so natural should be much better. I just have to run anything herbal by oncology. All I know for certain is that I would rather have diarrhea any-day than ever be that constipated again in my life. It was absolutely awful!! Has anyone tried prune juice? Is it bad. It sounds bad. Are there any tricks to make it tolerable? In the hospital the nurse mixed the MiraLAX in apple juice. She said it’s a natural laxative but I don’t know If that’s a wives tale or fact.