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Dr. Andrew Rynne
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Dr. Andrew Rynne

Family Physician

Exp 50 years

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What Causes Mucus In The Stool While Suffering From Constipation?

I had a righ hemicolectomy May 30th and developed an abscess at the anastomoses. I have been slowly recovering but noticed increased gelatinous drainage in my stool. I am battling between diarrhea from laxatives and constipation trying to adjust. Is the gelatin substance normal at this stage?
posted on Mon, 31 Jul 2017
Twitter Tue, 14 Nov 2017 Answered on
Twitter Thu, 16 Nov 2017 Last reviewed on
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General Surgeon,  's  Response
Hi and welcome to Healthcaremagic. Thank you for your query. I am Dr. Rommstein, I understand your concerns and I will try to help you as much as I can.
The presence of mucus in stool is common. And normal in some amounts however a large amount of visible mucus in your stool isn’t normal and might be a sign of a problem. If you begin seeing mucus in your stool, the levels are probably already elevated. That doesn’t necessarily indicate you have a problem, but it’s something you should monitor especially if there is blood in stool or pain during defecation. In such cases it may be caused by inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohs or ulceratice colitis. IBS or infectious colitis are another causes but it would be assoictaed with fever and loose stools. All in all, you should wait for few days, have easy diet, lot of fluids and see will it improve. If not you should do colonoscopy as a start of work up.
Wishing you good health. Regards
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What Causes Mucus In The Stool While Suffering From Constipation?

Hi and welcome to Healthcaremagic. Thank you for your query. I am Dr. Rommstein, I understand your concerns and I will try to help you as much as I can. The presence of mucus in stool is common. And normal in some amounts however a large amount of visible mucus in your stool isn’t normal and might be a sign of a problem. If you begin seeing mucus in your stool, the levels are probably already elevated. That doesn’t necessarily indicate you have a problem, but it’s something you should monitor especially if there is blood in stool or pain during defecation. In such cases it may be caused by inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohs or ulceratice colitis. IBS or infectious colitis are another causes but it would be assoictaed with fever and loose stools. All in all, you should wait for few days, have easy diet, lot of fluids and see will it improve. If not you should do colonoscopy as a start of work up. Wishing you good health. Regards