Cant go !

thumbelina007

Hi
Im just wondering can anyone recommend a herbal laxative that you can take every day ?
Ive had a colonic and i seem to have extreme difficulties digesting food even thou the therapist said my diet was fine... i still cant go every day , so it would be very helpful if anyone knew of laxatives that can be taken every day or even every one to 2 days .... with me at the moment it could be once every 2 weeks so i really need to get moving .. if ya no what i mean

g'em

I'm not a big fan of laxatives myself, but Senakot isn't too bad as herbal ones go. Personally I've found Fybogel to help immensely when my IBS flares up.

thumbelina007

g'em wrote: »

I'm not a big fan of laxatives myself, but Senakot isn't too bad as herbal ones go. Personally I've found Fybogel to help immensely when my IBS flares up.

Im not either to be honest but i seriously need to get some regular movement and havent a clue what else i can do ....

would you take the fybogel regularly , is it a drink or tablet ?

g'em

thumbelina007 wrote: »

Im not either to be honest but i seriously need to get some regular movement and havent a clue what else i can do ....

It's a horrible, horrible feeling, trust me I feel your pain

thumbelina007 wrote:

would you take the fybogel regularly , is it a drink or tablet ?

It's a sachet that you mix up with water, take it once in the evening, once in the morning, orange flavour and not too bad but the granules tend to form a big gooey lump in the bottom to you have to stir and drink fast! It's just soluble fibre really.

thumbelina007

g'em wrote: »

It's a horrible, horrible feeling, trust me I feel your pain

It's a sachet that you mix up with water, take it once in the evening, once in the morning, orange flavour and not too bad but the granules tend to form a big gooey lump in the bottom to you have to stir and drink fast! It's just soluble fibre really.

cool , thanks a million g'em, ill def give that a go first so .
thanks.

How Strange

g'em wrote: »

I'm not a big fan of laxatives myself, but Senakot isn't too bad as herbal ones go. Personally I've found Fybogel to help immensely when my IBS flares up.

A doctor told me once that senna (the main ingredient in senakot) makes your bowl lazy so if you suffer from a sluggish one anyway you certainly don't want to make it worse.

I use fybogel when I need it. Also dark green vegetables, carrots and foods like beans and chickpeas are quite good too for me. Prunes are a necessary part of my daily diet.

I read somewhere that a cup of strong coffee/espresso first thing in the morning is also good for a kick start as it's a natural laxative. I don't drink coffee so I can't say if it works or not.

freebird23

ye coffee does the trick a good strong cup and it works pretty good. Its the acids in the coffee that do the job google it and there is a lot on it. anyway coffee gives you a good boost in the morn

DéiseGirl

:rolleyes: I just never seem to get enough fibre into my diet so I'm always buying things like fybogel. I also keep a tub of regucol from Holland & Barrett. It's like a tub of sawdust really but if it's on special offer it can be cheap enough. If I'm having that I might throw in an effervescent orange vitamin tablet and it tastes quite like fybogel.

hunnymonster

Another thing that I've found helpful is running. It's like the repetative jolting loosens everything.

jam_mac_jam

a packet of raisins and a pint of water before you go to bed. Failing raisins grapes, trust me nothing works like it. Laxatives will not help in the long run. oh when I say packet of raisins I mean little box about 30g not a big packet obviously.

Chilis as well if like them, very good for this problem.

How Strange

hunnymonster wrote: »

Another thing that I've found helpful is running. It's like the repetative jolting loosens everything.

+1 in fact this can be really annoying when I go out for a long run and have to make a detour into a cafe or pub in my running gear and all sweaty.

jam_mac_jam, I must try the raisins thing and see if it works for me.

jam_mac_jam

How Strange wrote: »

+1 in fact this can be really annoying when I go out for a long run and have to make a detour into a cafe or pub in my running gear and all sweaty.

jam_mac_jam, I must try the raisins thing and see if it works for me.

grapes either, and dont forget the water. I find it works better than laxatives or fybogel as you dont have the opposite problem as a result if you know what i mean.

g'em

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

grapes either, and dont forget the water. I find it works better than laxatives or fybogel as you dont have the opposite problem as a result if you know what i mean.

Fybogel only ever... how do I say this nicely... 'loosens' everything, it doens't open the floodgates like laxatives can

And yeah, grapes are known mild laxatives, especially their seeds and their skins. Great tip jam!

stupidusername

I have IBS, have had it for years, only didn't know it was a real thing. I have IBS-C, constipation more than diahorrea. It's terrible. I get so badly constipated, and nothing diet-wise helps. I've tried a really high fibre diet, I know all the things that every doctor will say. I could get so badly constipated that I wouldn't 'go' for two weeks, and i'd get terrible back pains from it. I can mostly only go when I have a situation where it makes it awkward, like a meeting or lecture. AWKWARD!

I used to take duphalac, every day for years. Didn't find it great. just never felt natural, then tried the high fibre diet, then tried flaxseed oil tablets making sure I had bran flakes and at least 6gm fibre more in the day,didn't find that great either, again didn't feel normal. Then went to have a colonoscopy done, (in the middle of getting my IBS diagnosis, to rule out other things as my mam has bowel cancer) and the surgeon told me I was to take milphar and movicol every day for three months and see how i got on. couldn't take the milphar, the person who invented is the devil! its disgusting. took the movicol, but generally the same as everything else. Went to a nutritionist to change my diet. But that didn't help either. the diet she gave me was a bit odd anyway, compared to other diets you find for IBS. But I lost half a stone weight is all.

So eventually I tried something called celevac.My doctor at home said to take it while I'm in college, and things are awkward with my diet. She said its safe to take long term. (Same doctor misdiagnosed my mothers cancer 5 times). I asked two chemists also was it safe to take long term and they said it is. It is a tablet, its ingredient is methycellulose ( or something like that) you decide how much you take. I take three a day. Can take up to 12. I found this best of everything i've tried. Though after a time i felt it had stopped working as well. So in the meantime i've started on a new diet, which i'm not sure about either. BUT my little secret thing is that i also take a yacult every day....

My problem always was, besides the extreme constipation, the amount of gas i'd always have. Some days with the celevac I would still get bad gas, but since i've started having a yacult every day I feel better. It's hard to explain, but it just kinda seems to calm everything down a bit. It gives me less of an urge to go to the toilet, but this is what i need while i'm in college, and it gives me less gas, so socially i feel at ease...

Probably doesn't sound great but I still go three times a week, and i can't ask for better than that while i'm still at college, and don't want to be making three trips a class to the bathroom....

I don't know if any of these things are things you're willing to try, but I would suggest giving the yacult a try, i think it might help you feel a bit better. only thing i should warn you about if you want to try the celevac, is that it is impossible to find it. I get mine in boots every time, because I know they have it, only problem is they don't know they have it! I actually had to get a tub yesterday, and two counter assistants didn't know what it was, so they asked the chemist, and he didn't know. they'd to ask me how to spell it, and then ended up looking it up on their stock system, just to check if they actually had it....:eek:

Thats my two cents anyway... ooh that was long...sorry

oh and PS the reason tea and coffee are good is because caffeine gives you diahorrea, believe me!

aare

For me, the ultimate "dambusters" (after trying literally EVERYTHING) are Aloe Pura (actually recommended to me, for daily use, by a Consultant Gastroenterologist in relation to Diverticulosis) or Potters Herbal Cleasing Tablets. Both from Holland and Barratt/Natures Way.

The active ingredient is cascara which, while extremelly effective (think "floodgates"), is the only laxative safe for use on horses (who have exceptionally vulnerable bowels compared to us), and does not have any adverse after effect on the bowel's ability to "shift for itself" ( most other laxatives make the bowel "lazy" - which is usually also the reason why laxatives seem to "stop working" after a while).

However, long term...

My bowel problems were diagnosed as "probably a side effect of diverticulitis" and something I would have to "live with" in 2003...BUT...since discovering that I am celiac this year, I have discovered that (in common with a lot of celiacs) I have other food sensitivities that were causing severe constipation and bloating...that got far worse when I went gluten free.

It might be worth going over your diet and seeing if you have any.

Eggs, soy, milk, sulfates, nightshades and tannins are all possible culprits. If you do without for 72 hours your system should be clear, and if your problems are being either, caused, or exacerbated by a food sensitivity, by all accounts (and my own experience) the effect will be noticeable.

Personally I start to urinate far more and suddenly wake up with a flat stomach, no odema around my feet, and, of course, no sense of constipation.

If I eat something I am sensitive to (the worst culprit seems to be tannin), I will bloat within hours.

Another thing I have learned is that, while you are suffering from severe constipation, if fiber isn't helping you at all, keep it to a minimum until you sort the problem out, because until "the earth moves" the less bulk of any kind you eat, the better.

neuro-praxis

I have tried everything. Sometimes stuff works and sometimes it doesn't Here is one that always works (for me).

You can buy little condensed food-cubes in Boots simply called "Fruit and Fibre". They come in a small, flat green box. They are slightly nasty-tasting cubes of condensed dates, figs etc. I would eat one with a pint of water before bed, and if things are bad, I'd have two.

It never fails me. And it's completely natural. The effects that Senokot have on my bowel freak me out slightly!

Edwardius

Strong coffee and a tablespoon of fish oil works wonders. Once every two weeks is a bit scary. aare is onto something with the allergies. Try eliminating stuff that might cause bowel inflammation, ditch grains/dairy for a week (up the fruit&veg intake too), nightshades as mentioned (potoatoes, tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, chillis). If that doesn't work, eliminate something else. There's no need to be obsessed with going to the can three times a day but two weeks does point to something properly wonky in the machinery.

OP, what do you eat anyway?

Davei141

1KG bag of frozen brocolli, 37 grams of fibre. Enjoy!

Doolee

Prunes! Trust me...but go easy at first cause one prune a day...yes just one could be enough. Seriously its amazing!