[teach]

Can taking fiber and a stool softener cause the stools to go the opposite way.. hard???? How about the combo of one dose of miralax and a stool softener? Too much of a good thing? My stools are HARD.. and hard to pass.

 

[Kathleen M.]

Too much fiber without enough water can make the stools hard. Do you drink enough water for the miralax and stool softeners to work? While they hold water in the stool, they do have to have enough water to work with. Fiber also tends to hold water in the stool but not as much and again if your body doesn't have enough water it will pull it out of the stool and can pull more than the fiber or osmotic laxative or stool softener can hold.If you are drinking more than enough water then fiber may not be for you and maybe back off on that and just increase the osmotics until you et enough water staying in the stool it can be soft at the end.Now if you strain and strain and strain no matter how soft the stool is you may need to have your pelvic floor evaluated as some people will tighten up the sphincter rather than relax it when you try to gne thing to remember is osmotics and stool softeners usually work with the stool from the meal near where you took them. They can't mix through the whole stool so it may take 3-5 days of regular use before you see the difference. They are not a take now and the stool at the far end of the GI tract gets wetter. Only the stool with the stuff mixed in will get the benefit.

 

[teach]

Thanks.... I do try to drink alot of water and other liquids all day but also feel like I am retaining fluids. Will back off fiber. How much miralax can one take in a day? I feel like i am becoming dependent on it.

 

[Kathleen M.]

you can't become dependent on it. Even most of the stimulatory laxative you can't become dependent on (that is you made yourself worse than you would be on your own). The one laxative they blamed "cathartic colon" on is off the market and they have no evidence any of the current ones do that at all (although I will say people who do the binge and purge and take 10-100X the regular dose may cause problems, but that may be as much from the disordered eating as from the massive doses of laxatives).However if you have chronic constipation you will need chronic treatment, and constipation can get worse on its own as well.Miralax is pretty safe even as you increase dose. So if you need more osmotics (like if your transit is pretty slow and you only go a few times a month and if that is the case you do want to back off the fiber) it is a pretty good one to up the dose of.If your constipation is getting worse a transit test if you haven't had one may be in order, but you will have to be off laxatives and some people can't do that unless they can take a week off.