Hello all,
I am caring for my husband. He has had 5 radiation treatments so far and the PEG inserted today. He has had terrible constipation from the pain meds. He is so blocked that he cannot eat and feels awful. We tried laxatives and a Fleet. Nothing has worked so far. Any advice. I am concerned because he is not eating and cannot afford to lose weight. He is thin and needs to gain. We were in a good rhythm of gaining weight and then this happened. Tried everything nurse suggested. Is there any danger here?
EllenB

Lived that pain after going on the patch (I was told the pain meds consume liquids and harden your stools). I tried everything to have a bowel movement. Finally lots of natural laxatives and a lot of painful, forceful attempts I had a movement. If he isn't on a feeding tube yet try to stay regular with fiber and laxatives but it is important to have that movement! If he can't make it happen on his own get your doctor involved (Soon).
Best Wishes,
Steve

If it were me,I would call the doctor for advice. I found that my MD's were really great about helping me through the rough spots that always seemed to pop up after regular office hours so don't be shy and wait till morning if your gut tells you that you shouldn't. Bowel obstruction can be a real concern so it's a very good idea to be attentive to this kind of thing.

There's probably something that the Doc can recommend/prescribe that will give your husband relief.

Take care

sounds oh so familiar. I wasn't about to give up the pain pills or patches yet they caused the constipation. The prescription laxatives did not work, nor did folk remedies like prune juice etc and I was in imminent danger of ruining some resident's day by needing a bowel obstruction procedure.
Glycerin suppositories to the rescue. You can buy them at any drugstore without a script. I just doubled the recommended dose and used them daily. It's important to follow the instructions literally: not to go into squeamish details but full insertion and holding it in for 20 minutes are needed for this method. No risk of overdose, no bad side effects, and it works when all else fails. As usual a nurse, not a doctor knew the answer to a common patient side effect. IMO it would not hurt to try a suppository

Charm

You are a man with a plan charm!!! I held my advice as I was useless here becuse my constipation is easily taken care of with a glass of milk or any kind of dairy... Call it an allergic reaction if you will but it works wonders for me. the flax seed oil I have daily also keeps things running smoothly! Good luck Ellen!

Ellen, I feel for you and him. I went through an excruciating bout of this and nothing seemed to help. Without getting too graphic, my RO nurse finally suggested that I get some rubber gloves. Afraid so, but that was the only thing that finally did the trick - and I'd tried all the laxatives, suppositories and general oral things that are supposed to in this case. I live alone so it was all up to me.

There you have it.

Wow!, David2 - gonna keep that one in mind. Wish my son had known about the rubber gloves when he was struggling and I was shopping the drugstores for aids! Just goes to show, help comes to us in many different ways!

A simple though necessary evil. In fact a lifesaver.

Same exact experience as David 2 but I solved my problem at home without consulting anyone. Also didn't think about the gloves. Believe me I was desperate so you know the saying "desperate people do desperate things".

Thanks all. We did laxatives and suppositories. Things broke up a bit so will keep up a regimen to help

I cannot offer first-hand experience here, since never in my life have I had the problem under discussion. However, when my father-in-law was living with us, he did have the problem and I gave him prune juice. It worked very well. If you don't like prune juice, you can put nice little cut up pieces of prunes in your oatmeal (delicious!), you can make prune brownies, prune souffle dessert, prune cookies, prune/nut bread. Dried prunes are also good cooked in a little water which softens them up and water turns to juice. They slide down really easy (and out as well). Makes a nice little warm side dish at breakfast. If you have kids you can tell them those little dark pieces in the cookies or the oatmeal are mushy raisins.

All of which reminds me of the old story about the constipated mathematician. He worked it out with his pencil.

Sorry, couldn't resist... (and we all need levity!)

Martin has the same problem. He said Movicol helps a little, but also take Lactilose as it lubricates the poo and makes it slide more easily. Lactilose is not harmful as I was allowed to take when I was pregnant. Martin just told me a s well that the secret and the best advice he can give is: take a magazine, go and sit on the loo every day, even if you don't think you need to go, and sit and wait. And more often than not, you will go a little bit. A little bit is good as it's if you wait too long that it builds up that's when you need to dig out.

Please accept my entrance into the "no____!" Club. (Feel free to delete).

I've never in my life been constipated(70 years, a pregnancy, hysterectomy, hemorrhoidectomy), and I can see now how blessed I've been! Don't know yet what the combo is that suddenly brought this about, but it's been 24 hours and I just returned from a painful 40-mile RT trip for daily radiation. The nurse suggested Senokot, which I took about an hour ago and I'm now sipping some split pea soup.

Good grief, this is awful. I've known people from my past who suffered constipation on a regular basis and I have no idea how they managed to function.

This too shall pass (literally). (I'm such a whiner.)

My sympathies to all those who sit and wait. I've also heard that a small stool (the kind you put your feet up on) helps one get into the proper position for easy success. I had some out of town company recently and the first morning, she asked me for some reading matter. I started to go through my favorites, i.e, John Grisham, Buddha, Eckhardt Tolle and she interrupted with "Anything!" and I realized she was on her way to the bathroom. The read and sit must work, though because one day as my daughter passed the bathroom where her youngest son (9 yrs) was sitting on the poo place, she asked him what he was doing checking out his shorts. He said he was reading the label on his underwear because he had forgotten his book. So, to all those who sit and wait, just remember, "stuff happens". . . . eventually.

As a nurse (a very long time ago) dealing with people who suffered this as a matter of course, we had "manual evacuation days". This was very unpleasant for the patients and not much fun for the nurses either.

To avoid having too many on our list, we would start with laxatives taken orally, progress the following day to liquid paraffin taken orally and then a suppository just before the last resort of manual evacuation.

I had success with a glycerin based suppository (ask your pharmacist) and then getting the patient to squat on the toilet seat rather than sitting on it (relaxes the relevant muscles which lessens the pain) and then push on the belly area. They would also have to be patient as the motion could take a while. Reading is good, sudokus are good, crosswords are good but you have to remember to keep straining.

The only problem with the squat is that toilets are not really designed for this and success may also require a bit of clean up if your aim is a bit off. Take old towels with you just in case and keep the toilet brush handy. This is still preferable to the digital or manual evacuation method which is even more messy.

Following my ordeal last Friday, the Senokot finally did its job, so now I'll get ahead of this so it doesn't happen again following Wednesday's Erbitux treatment by taking one immediately upon arriving home thereafter. (It was the following Thursday/Friday that the constipation occurred.) So since then, back to "normal.")

The suggestions from all of you are good ones, but I think they assume the constipation hasn't reached the point (like it did for me, late Friday after I had first posted) where the spasms were basically involuntary because I was so impacted. Remember that I'm eating solid foods, as well as lots of liquid protein drinks, so I was definitely plugged up real good.

The rest of the treatment is okay; about what I expected. Burning in my throat and mouth are tolerable, but yesterday my lips were burning up. (I'm fair skinned and my lips have always been vulnerable to sun, etc., anyway, so that didn't surprise me either.) After trying all sorts of moisturizing solutions, I finally remembered Bag Balm (very heavy on lanolin) which I use in the winter when my fingers crack. Bag Balm is used extensively on dairy farms to keep cows' udders from chaffing so bad that they bleed especially in winter. True story. Now you can buy it at any pharmacy and it comes in a cute little green tin with a pink clover design so if guests discover it in your bathroom, they don't think you really live in a barn when they're not there.

I don't see that anyone has mentioned this, but constipation during treatment is something everyone deals with, and it is not related to the chemo, but the pain meds usually. Most of the heavy duty pain medications will stop things up. So all throughout treatment to take some kind of stool softeners routinely, regardless of when you have had treatments or when you take your pain meds, is the best plan.

Also dehydration can cause the big C. In fact one is pretty lucky NOT to get constipated during this Tx.

I had the same problem and was given prescription laxatives and stool softners. A lady I talked to who had gone through the same thing told me to get Miralax. You mix it in any drink and you can't taste it and it worked within 3 days. Hope this helps. Prayers for your husband going up.

Okay, this is my experience. I suffered with "C" mostly because of the meds to prevent nausea they gave IV during chemo, not the Cisplatin, although I've read Cisplatin can do some things to gut nerves. In fact, a couple of the nurses told me that those meds were as powerful as pain meds for causing constipation. But if you are getting both, who knows what's causing it for you, it's just happening.

I got so I took my senokot-s (the max number) BEFORE chemo. That way I got through the next two days. I took senakot, two a day, every other day, after the first three weeks of treatment. But, you are correct Morgan when you say you have to be "cleaned out" for something like senokot to work. I figured that one out too with the advice of another nurse. I too never suffered from constipation to any degree before this. Another humbling experience, which does indeed give us the ability to sympathize with others . . . Also constipating was the iron I had to take because all my life I have been either slightly anemic or just over the minimum. And I found out that too much fiber will cause constipation, to my surprise.

Yeah, I think everyone has it to some extent during treatment, although I never took a survey in the waiting room!
Anne

also picked up glycerin supps for my Dad so he could can work both ends, so to speak ;-}