What Causes Increased Frequency Of Defecation After Having Food?

Posted on Fri, 23 Jan 2015

Question: I am a 53 year old female. I have recently had a flare up of interstitial cystitis and have had abdominal and loin pain. However, over the last few days I have had a change in bowel habit too - after eating a lot of food I would not normally eat over Christmas - I continue to have abdominal pain but now for the last few days have had to defecate several times a day which is unusual for me. There is no blood but I do have an odd sensation in my rectum which feels like something crawling. I did have an episode of constipation about 10 days ago when I did bleed after passing a stool. I also feel very bloated and my abdomen feels sore all over.

Answered by Dr. Grzegorz Stanko (27 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Gastrointestinal infection or partial bowels obstruction can be the reason.

Detailed Answer:
Hello!

Thank you for the query.

Any change in bowels habit, stool pattern over the age of 50 should not be ignored. It is because the risk of colon cancer significantly rises of 50.
Your symptoms can be caused by mild gastrointestinal infection (so called food poisoning) however partial bowels obstruction due to colon cancer can act in the very same way.
Diarrhea, blood in stool, abdominal pain, bloating are typical symptoms of partial bowels obstruction. The pain is usually cramp like. There is a feeling of trapped gas in the abdomen and occasional inability to pass gas.
Blood in the stool can be a sign of hemorrhoids (its the most common reason). In such case it appears on the surface of the stool especially after constipation episode.
However if the blood is mixed with stool, other reasons like a polyp or cancer can be the case.

Here is what you should do:
- consult your regular doctor, have blood work, abdominal x-ray (to rule out an obstruction) and abdominal ultrasound
- have stool test and stool culture test
- get scheduled for colonoscopy (even if a doctor will tell that this is an infection)
- in a meanwhile start probiotic intake
- consider Rifaximine treatment if stool test will diagnose an infection

Hope this will help. Feel free to ask further questions.
Regards.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Raju A.T

Follow up: Dr. Grzegorz Stanko (1 hour later)

Hi thank you for answer I will go to my doctor. I think I may have an answer for the bloated feeling and stomach cramps - thinking back it started when I started on probiotics and think I may have taken too much. I haven't had any blood or diarrhoea. I will lay off the probiotics. The other thing is I have been tAking trimethoprim for a couple of weeks - do you think this could be down to an Imbalance in the gut?

Answered by Dr. Grzegorz Stanko (10 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Trimethoprim could cause this symptoms for sure.

Detailed Answer:
Hi,

Trimethoprim is what for sure could cause all your symptoms. Please note that intestines are covered with good, protective bacteria. When you take an antibiotic (which is Trimethoprim) you kill this bacteria. Without this bacteria, other, bad bacteria can appear and grow in the digestive tract causing all mentioned by you symptoms. That is why it is good to take probiotic along with antibiotic.
Taking too much probiotic can also cause some digestive tract problems but this rather has minor impact.

So please continue probiotic in regular dosage. Stool test and Rifaximine treatment seems the correct choice. But colonoscopy should be done either way.

Regards.

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Raju A.T