Are you suffering from constipation? Ahead of Bowel Cancer Awareness Month, Dr Tim Woodman, Medical Director, Policy and Cancer Services, Bupa UK Insurance, explores the UK’s top Googled searches around not being able to ‘go’, and shares advice for anyone seeking help.
Constipation can have many possible causes, from being dehydrated to not moving around enough. In some cases, changes to your toilet habits may be a sign of bowel cancer – so it’s important to know what a cause for concern would be.
Every month, people in the UK turn to Google in their thousands for help with constipation, with searches like:
• Why can’t I poo?
• Why haven’t I pooped in 3 days?
• Can’t poop without laxative
• What happens if you can’t poo?
• How to poop when you can’t
• Why can’t I poop on vacation?
What is constipation?
There are a few symptoms that can suggest constipation in adults:
1. Having much less frequent bowel movements, e.g., pooing fewer than three times in one week.
2. Passing stools that are either much bigger than usual, or they’re small, hard and dry.
3. Finding you’re having to strain a lot when pooing, which can be painful.
4. Feeling like you’ve not fully emptied your bowels when you do manage to poo.
5. With the above symptoms, you may also feel sick, bloated or have a stomach ache.
What causes constipation?
Anyone can get suffer with constipation, and there are many potential reasons you might get it as an adult, including:
- Your diet. Fibre and fluids are key to keep your bowels functioning regularly – too little can lead to constipation.
- Lack of physical activity
- Delaying using the toilet when you need to
- Certain medications – for example, antidepressants, calcium or iron supplements, painkillers like codeine or morphine
Sometimes, there’s no obvious cause for constipation. It’s twice as common in women than it is in men, and common in pregnant women and those over 65.
On holiday, you may find that you drink less, eat more treats or try more new foods than usual. These changes to your diet may make going to the toilet when you’re on holiday particularly difficult and more noticeable, especially if you’re in a warmer country, when you might forget to increase your fluid intake.
If you have constipation for more than three weeks, speak to a health professional. It’s important to speak to a health professional if you’re bleeding from your back passage (rectum) at all, either into the toilet, or onto toilet paper when you’re wiping – this could be a sign of something more serious.
How to help prevent and treat constipation
- If you’re struggling to ‘go’, you can mix up your lifestyle slightly to see if it helps make you more regular.
- Include more fibre in your diet. Good sources include opting for wholegrain varieties, e.g., bread, pasta, rice and cereals.
- Up your fluid intake – aim for eight glasses every day.
- Make sure you’re doing regular exercise. It doesn’t have to be anything too strenuous, but we should all aim to be active for at least 150 minutes, every week. Opting to take the stairs instead of the lift, or walking to the corner shop can be simple ways to add extra movement into your life
- Go to the toilet regularly, and when you need to.
If, after trying the above steps, you’re still constipated, speak to a health professional, like a pharmacist or GP. They may be able to recommend laxative treatments to help draw water into your poo, bulking it up and making it easier to pass.
Constipation and bowel cancer
It’s important to keep an eye on any symptoms around constipation, especially if they last for three weeks or more. Speak to a health professional if you start becoming regularly constipated, spot blood in your poo or coming from your rectum, begin losing weight without trying to, or start feeling tired for no clear reason.
Symptoms of bowel cancer can also cause a loosening of your stools – seek an urgent GP appointment if you have dark red, black or bloody poo or diarrhoea. Call 999 or go to Accident and Emergency if you’re experiencing non-stop bleeding from your rectum, or you have lots of blood or large blood clots when using the toilet.
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