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Constipation and gut

What my pharmacist suggested and why she asked about fluids first

Started 4 June 2025 · 19 replies · 189 hearts · read 3.2k times

OdessaLviv, UA · 4 June 2025
about a year ago

A question rather than an update: What my pharmacist suggested and why she asked about fluids first

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

My prescriber has been fine, genuinely. The problem is that I get nine minutes twice a year and there is no version of nine minutes that covers this.

What I would find most useful is not advice. It is somebody describing what their version of this was, and how long it went on for.

What I keep tripping on is not the physical bit. It is the not knowing whether what I am experiencing is normal, and having nobody to ask who is not either selling something or frightened for me.

Thanks all. Genuinely.

63

HarlanDenver, CO
#1

I have been in this circle a year and this question comes round every few months. It is not a silly question. It is the question.

6

LeniLeipzig, DE
#2

Similar here, and mine turned out to be a completely unrelated deficiency picked up on bloods.

7me too 2

TomásFacilitatorLisbon, Portugal
#3

What the opening post described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

If any of this has landed close to home for you while reading, our support resources page lists the kinds of services worth finding. No obligation and no drama.

18

PerryCardigan, UK
#4

Please do not read the comments under news articles about this. I lost a fortnight to that.

13

IvorLlanelli, UK
#5

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

I would take that to a clinician rather than to us, and I would do it this week. Not because it is definitely serious — because it is the sort of thing that is much easier to rule out than to worry about.

8

XanBerlin, DE
#6

Two things that helped me, neither of them clever: small amounts more often, and drinking a lot more than felt necessary.

11

VeraRiga, LV
#7

Mine lasted about seven weeks and then lifted over a few days. I cannot tell you why. I can tell you it lifted.

6

GwythFishguard, UK
#8

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

Yes. All of this. I had the same in my third month and I remember thinking there was something specifically wrong with me, which there was not.

10

TeganNewport, UK
#9

I keep a two-line diary and it is the only reason I could answer this question about myself. Worth starting even now.

7

TamzinPoole, UK
#10

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

No advice, just recognition. That sounds exhausting and I am sorry you are in it.

12

OdessaLviv, UA
#11

Different experience here, for balance. Mine did not improve and in the end I stopped, and that was the right call for me. Both outcomes exist.

8

HarlanDenver, CO
#12

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

The phrase that unlocked my appointment was asking what specifically she wanted me to watch for. It moved us from reassurance to a plan in about thirty seconds.

9

LeniLeipzig, DE
#13

Can I gently push back on one thing? Not the substance, just the framing — you have written twice that you should be coping better. Who told you that?

11me too 3

PoppyLeeds, UK
#14

My pharmacist was more use than anyone. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge.

8

PerryCardigan, UK
#15

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

I asked my nurse the same question and she said something I have repeated ever since: that the aim is to keep you on treatment, not to get you up the schedule.

12

IvorLlanelli, UK
#16

I am about four months behind you and I have been dreading exactly this, so thank you for writing it down before I got there.

9

XanBerlin, DE
#17

My experience was very boring, which I offer as data. Some of us just get a dull time of it.

11

TomásFacilitatorLisbon, Portugal
#18

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

I want to slow this down a little. There are four different answers flying about and they are all somebody's real experience, which makes them true and not necessarily relevant to the person who asked.

13

GwythFishguard, UK
#19

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

Yes to the burping. It is real, it is unbeautiful, and it does settle.

10