A peer support community, independent and not for sale. Since February 2024.

GLP CircleA peer support community

Constipation and gut

Travel makes it much worse for me

Started 9 November 2024 · 23 replies · 251 hearts · read 4.9k times

IvorLlanelli, UK · 9 November 2024
1.7 years ago

Travel makes it much worse for me Writing it down partly to work out what I actually think.

I have avoided asking about this for six weeks out of pure embarrassment.

This started at the same time as two other things, which is why I cannot attribute it to anything with any confidence.

Nobody warned me about this specifically and I am starting to think that is because it is common enough that everybody assumed I knew.

It is not severe. It is relentless, which turns out to be a different problem, and one I have found much harder to describe to anybody.

Thank you for reading something this unglamorous. Any experience welcome, and timescales especially.

84

GwythFishguard, UK
#1

My experience is that this settles for most people and lingers for some, and I am in the lingering group, and it is still manageable.

9

TomásFacilitatorLisbon, Portugal
#2

Stepping in because a question about another medication has come up. That is a pharmacist question and it is genuinely one they will answer properly and quickly.

26

LeniLeipzig, DE
#3

No wisdom, just: I am sorry. That sounds genuinely hard.

7me too 2

PerryCardigan, UK
#4

What made the difference was doing three small things consistently rather than one big thing occasionally. Very dull, very effective.

12

OdessaLviv, UA
#5

What Tomás described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

The thing nobody says is how much mental space this takes up. It is not just physically uncomfortable, it is on your mind constantly, and that is worth naming.

10

XanBerlin, DE
#6

Mine was much better on the days I ate at regular times and much worse on chaotic days. That pattern held over about four months of notes.

8

VeraRiga, LV
#7

Getting up ten minutes earlier so I was not rushing was the change that helped most, which was not the answer I was hoping for.

11

TeganNewport, UK
#8

Gently disagreeing with Odessa, or rather adding the other half of it.

I would say gently that if anything is bleeding, that is a different conversation and it belongs with a clinician rather than in a thread.

15

TamzinPoole, UK
#9

Xan has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

Somebody here described this as the least discussed and most common part of the whole business, and my experience matches that exactly.

13

PoppyLeeds, UK
#10

Mine improved when I stopped ignoring it. That sounds glib and it is literal — I had been putting it off for hours at a time and that was making it worse.

6me too 4

IvorLlanelli, UK
#11

Fluid was the single biggest lever for me, by a distance. Far more than any of the other things I tried and much less interesting to talk about.

12

GwythFishguard, UK
#12

Poppy has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

My pharmacist walked me through the options in about eight minutes, unprompted, and was more practically useful than either appointment I had about it.

14

HarlanDenver, CO
#13

Coming back to close the loop: settled, manageable, no longer something I think about. It genuinely does get less interesting.

11

LeniLeipzig, DE
#14

Unglamorous and universal, and I am glad this circle says so out loud, because I spent six weeks too embarrassed to ask about mine.

11me too 4

PerryCardigan, UK
#15

I would have written the same thing a year ago, word for word.

11me too 3

OdessaLviv, UA
#16

Movement helped mine more than anything I ate. A twenty-minute walk after dinner, nothing strenuous, and it made a noticeable difference within a week.

7

XanBerlin, DE
#17

Leni — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

What worked for me was adding fibre very gradually rather than all at once. I did all at once first and had an extremely uncomfortable week.

9

VeraRiga, LV
#18

Mine was worst in the first fortnight after each step up and then settled. Knowing the shape of it made it much easier to sit through.

5

TeganNewport, UK
#19

Mine alternated, which confused me and turned out to be extremely common. I had assumed it was one thing or the other.

8

TamzinPoole, UK
#20

What I got wrong was treating it as something to fix in a day. Everything that actually worked took a fortnight to show.

10me too 5

PoppyLeeds, UK
#21

The timing of things mattered more than the things themselves for me. Same fibre, spread across the day instead of in one go, completely different result.

13

GwythFishguard, UK
#23

Building on what Tamzin wrote rather than answering the original question.

I found magnesium helpful and I would say plainly that I checked with a pharmacist first because of another medication I take. Please do check.

10me too 1