Symptom 7: Altered Bowel Movements
The bowel, a crucial component of our digestive system, has a somewhat predictable behavior for most of us. Be it the frequency of your trips to the restroom or the consistency of what you find there, there’s a ‘normal’ that you’re accustomed to. But with toxic megacolon, that ‘normal’ takes a wild turn.
Now, every occasional bout of diarrhea or constipation doesn’t spell doom. However, with toxic megacolon, the changes in bowel movements aren’t just sporadic; they’re consistent and drastically different. You might experience prolonged episodes of constipation, interspersed with severely watery stools. This isn’t just an upset tummy – it’s a warning bell.
The colon, inflamed and dysfunctional, struggles to perform its duty of water absorption and waste elimination. It becomes distended, creating a backlog of fecal matter in some sections while accelerating the movement in others. This push-pull effect disrupts the entire rhythm of digestion and excretion.
Often accompanying these altered bowel movements is a sense of discomfort or outright pain. There’s a feeling of being ‘full’ or bloated. And each trip to the bathroom, rather than being relieving, becomes a dreaded task laden with unpredictability. (7)
