by gg3 » Sat 06 Jan 2007, 05:04:05
Nine pages of people worrying and fretting about their poo!
OK folks here's the simple answer:
The older you get, the greater the probability of age-related poo problems, for example constipation.
The best way to prevent and gently treat routine age-related poo problems is to eat a diet that includes fresh fruits and vegetables.
If you can't get enough fresh fruit & veggies or still notice occasional poo problems of whatever kind, add a small quantity of oat bran or wheat bran to your diet every day: start with a teaspoon added to your breakfast (sprinkle it on your cereal or whatever), and work your way up by increasing the dose each week. The second week, two teaspoons per day. The third week, three teaspoons per day which is about a tablespoon. Fouth week, four teaspoons. Etc.
Best time to increase your dose is on a day when you will be able to stay at home the following day in case you overdo and have to poop a lot that day.
Work your way up slowly until you notice that you aren't getting constipated, you can poop at least once a day at about the same time of day (all other factors equal), and that having a poop does not require a lot of effort and is neither painful nor otherwise problematic.
Good generic health advice: Don't go for dramatics. Somehow (too much media?) we get the idea that any change in the status of our health will announce itself with fireworks and catharsis. It's not so. Steady & gentle wins the race, in the poo department as well as in a number of other areas (e.g. the best way to lose weight is not to go for dramatics but simply to eat a little less of each thing you eat, and do a little more exercise each day, and do that consistently over a long period of time).
I've been adding oat bran to my granola each morning for about a year now as a routine preventive measure. It costs about two bucks for a six month suppy at any supermarket in the Bay Area. As far as I know it's working as it should: no poo problems to report, much less to take pictures of.