Why You May Be Glued To A Toilet With Diarrhea & What To Do About It
So you've been stuck to the toilet for what feels like hours pooping out brown water and at this point you may be wondering how on earth there is anything even left in you. Even if things seem to let up, you are still terrified to leave the house for fear of where the closest bathroom is or worse having to use a bathroom around other people.
You may have even thought...
"What if someone hears me... what if someone SMELLS me!"
And if we are super honest you are probably thinking about how raw your butt is feeling (am I right?). Go grab the coconut oil, lubricate your toosh and ease the pain because we are about to dive into 3 things that are contributing to your violent bowel movements.
1. Bacterial
An imbalance of good to bad bacteria can be a major factor when it comes to unhappy bowels. Stress, dehyrdration, antibiotics, prescriptions or over the counter medications, toxins both from food (herbicides and pesticides) and from cleaners and even surgery all pose as a threat to your good bacteria.
Think of your good bacteria as bouncers at the door, keeping the bad guys out! Not enough of the good guys, means an overgrowth of the bad guys creating a digestive imbalance.
What To Do: Take a probiotic DAILY! Garden of Life's Dr. Formulated probiotics are a personal fav!
2. Food Sensitivities or Allergies
Your body may have let you know loud and clear when you have eaten a food that it didn't like it. The message may have come through in the form of a stomach ache, bloating, gas and unhappy poops, but did you listen to that message?
Often people will just set that pain aside or suck it up in the name of 2 seconds of "enjoyment" eating the food that your body would rather you didn't. This can be a sign of a sensitivity or even an allergy and ignoring this message from your body means that those foods, when consumed are only creating more inflammation and more damage to your gut. In your bodies attempt to balance itself, diarrhea can be a common reaction from the body trying to eliminate the unwanted food STAT!
What To Do: Add in bulking fibers (this will help to create a formed stool) such as psyllium husk or pumpkin puree with LOTS of water and LISTEN TO YOUR BODY!! If you are unsure what you are sensitive to, seek out a holistic practitioner who can do food sensitivity testing.
3. STRESS!
The truth is we ALL experience stress! Prolonged or high levels of stress will deplete your good bacteria and your digestive enzymes (responsible for breaking down your foods), further feeding back into 1 and 2 above!
Your body has this beautiful way of trying to self-regulate. Believe it or not it really is wired to be healthy and because of this your body will try to re-balance itself during high levels of stress, for example, purging the body (aka diarrhea).
What To Do: This is a tough one, but it CAN be done! While I believe in finding what stress reducing tactics work best for you, exercise/movement can make a world of difference as it increases your serotonin (your happy neurotransmitter) elevating your mood and energy. Aim to move your body for 15-30 minutes 3-4 times a week.
