Your Colon & Constipation

Your Colon & Constipation

Constipation?

Most people when they hear the word constipation want you to whisper.  Today it is still the unspeakable word no one wants to be talking about.  The best way to define constipation is by not having at least three poops a week.  There are varied “regular” patterns for different people; so, when your pattern is off track you need to consider yourself constipated and take immediate action.

It doesn’t matter what kind of bowel habit you have: it is certain that the intermittent time before you do poop, the harder it will be for the poop to come out.

Here are some signs that can usually help you say I have constipation:

  • It hurts when you poop and you can hardly get anything to come out.
  • If anything comes out it is hard and dry.
  • No matter what you feel like there is still a lot of poop inside you.

Anyone, no matter your age will run into constipation every now and then.  Some people and some situations that will come more causing constipation on a consistent basis are:

  • Old age because you do not move around as much, metabolism slower
  • During pregnancy, the baby pushes on the intestines holding the stool back
  • If you don’t eat high-fiber foods in the right amount
  • Certain medications
  • Some diseases of the spinal cord, brain, and digestive disorders.

If you had to put your finger on something that causes constipation to happen?

It starts when your colon begins absorbing excess water from your waste products (poop) that will dry out you are more and make it feel hard a chunk of wood and almost impossible to get it to push on our of your rectum.

Your food is used to moving through the food tract, getting its nutrients as it rolls along the way.  The food at this point is only partially digested and begins dumping from the small part of the intestine to the large intestine.  The large intestine is called by medical professionals your colon.  It too will absorb water from the waste and contributes to making more solid matter.  If you get constipated, then your food could start getting sluggish moving down through your digestive tract.  By the stool moving too slow more water will be extracted from it.  Making it harder, drier, and more difficult to push out the rectum.

  • Hemorrhoids (inflamed veins in your rectum)
  • Anal fissures (tears in your anus lining)
  • Diverticulitis (infection in some of the pouches that might form on the wall of the colon if your stool gets itself trapped and infected)
  • Fecal impaction (a pile-up of way too much poop right at the anus or rectum)
  • Stress urinary incontinence (damage to muscles of the pelvic floor because you strained so hard trying to move your poop) This can cause your urine to leak and run down your legs.

Can constipation cause internal damage or lead to other health problems?

Yes, complications can develop if you are not having regular, soft bowel movements.   If you should see black tarry stools or red blood in your poop; see a physician immediately.

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