[nomorepain23]

Hi there.

I've been dealing with incomplete evacuation again for the past 10 days or so due to stress. I also find that one of the main reasons my evacuations are incomplete is due to me having to strain when defecating. That's because I deal with shy bowel whenever I get stressed which is awful. I have to go multiple times a day, which I guess is comforting knowning that my colon at least doesn't stop working normally.

I've noticed that whenever I get bloated, I initially feel a pain in my rectum for a few hours and then it spreads to other areas of my belly. But, I've found that even if I go to the bathroom many times, the bloating basically never goes away. That made me wondered whether sometimes it's just gas and not feces. Is there a way to know the difference? Can you actually distinguish between pain/bloating caused solely by gas and pain/bloating caused solely by stool (or a combination of the two)?

Sorry if my question sounds a bit weird and thanks in advance for the info

 

[puertaabierta]

Personally I never have bloating just from faeces. When it feels like that in my rectum usually what's happened is there is lots of gas which has messed up stool formation and so the stool is separated like rocks which get stuck behind the rectal valves, and even though I can feel the rectum is full of stool and gas, it's not weighing down enough to trigger a defecation reflex. I don't know if maybe you have something similar or not but hope this helps

 

[nomorepain23]

Personally I never have bloating just from faeces. When it feels like that in my rectum usually what's happened is there is lots of gas which has messed up stool formation and so the stool is separated like rocks which get stuck behind the rectal valves, and even though I can feel the rectum is full of stool and gas, it's not weighing down enough to trigger a defecation reflex. I don't know if maybe you have something similar or not but hope this helps

Good to know. Have you been examined by a doctor, maybe like a colonoscopy? I have talked to doctors about it and they've suggested probiotics for better bowel movements but I guess a therapist would also be needed in this situation for the stress. I haven't been officially diagnosed with IBS but I've been told I have most of the symptoms.

 

[puertaabierta]

I've not had a colonoscopy yet, but if my infections/parasites tests come out negative then I'll have one. To be honest I think it's likely as there's a certain amount of muscle/nerve dysfunction I seem to have which I doubt is caused by an infection. Everything seems to speed through until the sigmoid which starts just generally acting weird

 

[EarnestAccord]

That is a hard one to tease out. I'm about 6weeks into the intro phase of a FODMAP diet and while it does produce far less gas, I'm realising that gas was only one of a few other symptoms I'm experiencing. I think my lower left quardant bloated sensation is essentially fecal matter. Obviously, there will often be fecal matter in my sigmoid/rectum, but I think my body miss-reads it as "irritating & pain". Incomplete evac, is a huge topic, but I'm not sure it is always a real sensation of remaining fecal matter. With that though, it sounds like it might be for you, at least currently.

 

[puertaabierta]

It is so hard to work out what is causing what. In my case incomplete evac often is what it feels like, you're right, but occasionally it's what it sounds like you might be having - when the sigmoid is particularly full (which for me is actually not all that common because if it's this full that usually means it's producing a proper stool!) it hangs down a bit lower and presses against the rectum, giving the sensation of fullness in the rectum when it's actually just that the rectum is being squeezed on one side.