Do you feel like your bowels haven’t emptied after a toilet visit?

The urge comes for a toilet visit and you trot off because you know it’s inadvisable to resist the urge. You sit down and something comes out but it doesn’t feel quite right. Surely there is something more in there but your body has stopped pushing. It feels really uncomfortable, and so you continue pushing, hoping for more success but still nothing and now you have been on the toilet for 30 minutes and you need to pick up the kids. Watch the video to find out what is happening and what to do about it.

Transcription of the Video

Today I want to talk to you about incomplete evacuation. Yes, it’s got a name. For when you go to the toilet and you feel like you haven’t finished but the rest won’t come out. So this is, unfortunately, a symptom of IBS and it happens to most of us in particular with IBS with constipation.

There are two reasons that this could be happening. The first is, as we know, we have a brain-to-gut connection that is faulty. And we receive inappropriate signals that might not be reality. And one of those signals could be that there’s more stool to come out. So, that could be one of the reasons. That simply, there is no more and we just have that sensation because the brain is telling us to have it. Or, in fact, in particular again, if we have IBS with constipation, maybe we’ve been sitting on the toilet for a while and straining, pushing to get out what we have managed to get out. And that has caused a little bit of inflammation around the anal area. And that inflammation will feel like there is something more to come out. Like there’s stool in your rectum right at the end. So the only thing you can do in that case is to relax. Do what you think you should have done in the toilet and then relax. Stay on the toilet because you’ve got that sensation and it’s not particularly pleasant. And wait for that to calm down, and go away, and I assure you it will go away because it happens to me. So I know it does go away. So just sit there. Wait for the sensation to go away and get off the toilet. And you’re done. And you probably won’t feel, once you’re up, that there’s anything more that you have to do.

Now, there is another reason why you might be having some difficulty getting stool out, and therefore there could be some left in there, and that’s because you’re not having enough fiber. We know all about fiber. That there’s a fine line with it. But we need enough to be able to get those stools to form to a good shape and size so that they come out easily. But too much and it gives us all our symptoms of bloating and cramping, etc. But if you’re getting a stool that’s long, skinny, and maybe a bit slimy, that’s really got not enough fiber in it. Or it could be little soft plops as well, or dollops without much form to them. Both of those kinds of stools are lacking in fiber and it’s very hard to make them come out.

The body likes to have a fairly well-formed stool of a certain consistency for the muscles to start pushing it along – that reflex that the body has to evacuate the stool. If you have these long skinny slimy ones, or little dollops, the body’s not going to give you that sensation and help you with getting it out. And you’re going to be sitting there pushing to get it out. Which then will cause the inflammation and you’ll have a double problem. So in that case, of course, you have to work on your fiber levels. We know they can’t be too high but you have to get it right for you to get that consistency with the stool without causing any of the unpleasant symptoms of bloating, gas, or cramping.

Well, I hope that has helped to clarify a little more about incomplete evacuation.

Thank you for watching and goodbye.

A squatty potty is a great idea for opening up the kink in the colon and facilitating complete evacuation. Check it out:

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