Bowel wake-up call?

Primary progressive MS
1

Hi all, not a life or death question, just a small observation…

Anyone else notice that if you’re constipated and you take a laxative, that you then go normally for a few days? It’s like you’ve woken the bowel up and takes a few days to go back into sleep mode?

Nothing like a good bowel question on a Sunday lunchtime eh?

I had the most horrendous nightmare last night. I can’t remember all of it… but it ended with me being in a dark room knowing that there was a ‘presence’ in the room with me… an evil one… and then I was aware that I was in bed and behind me I could hear the loud flapping of enourmous wings…like a huge bird… I was trying to shout out ‘Somebody help me’ but no voice would come out… and then I woke up.

Honestly, I had to turn the light on and sat in bed terrified for quite a while… too scared to even go the loo. Awful and that hasn’t happened to me for years.

Cooler in London today but they say 35c tomorrow… and humid! Hate humid!

Hope everyone is doing ok? Enjoy your Sunday,

Love, Pat xx

2

Hi Pat,

I can’t really comment on the laxatives cos I have been very

reluctant to take any in the past, although I do get constipated.

I generally find that eating fruit (especially prunes), drinking loads

and loads of water, will eventually have an effect, but I do think that

my bowel is lazy!

Strangely enough I have always had night terrors (even before ms)

whereby my hubby tells me I scream, cry and shout. He gently wakes

me up, but honestly, hand on heart, I cannot remember anything when

he tells me next morning.

I would be interested to know if you, or anyone else, experiences awful

pain in their heels, even when sitting with feet up. It’s not all the time, but

the pain is like if you were walking on glass shards, really strange.

Cooler today here (thank goodness) but forecast is for hot again next week

and then thunderstorms.

Take care

Pam x

3

Hi Pat, oh what a horrible dream…nightmare more like! It wouldve disturbed me too. Poor you, hope youre getting over it luv.

Constipation? yeh, that`s a big star in my life too.

No matter how much fibre and stuff I eat, i dont go, unless I use laxido (movicol).

I can go anywhere between 7 days and 4 times a day.

But now I have the spc, I MUST not allow myself to go for more than a day, or i could end up with by-pass from my bladder.

luv Pollx

4

Thanks Pam… no I don’t get the heel pain… but wonder if it’s pressure from pushing yourself up with heels in bed?

Thanks Poll…bloody constipation! I can go a week without going. Eating loads of fruit right now as on a low-fat diet (yes I have actually lost 5lb!!!) but seems to have made the constipation even worse.

Having a very quiet & relaxed day and am over the nightmare.

Did anyone watch ‘The Turn of the Screw’ on ITV 3? (that was almost as spooky as my nightmare… LOL…)

Pat x

5

I have to take movicol at certain times of the month but can go from one extreme to another so have to be very careful about how much I take! I can’t ever seem to get it exactly right. Don’t seem to dream very much at all - only get nightmares very occasionally. Yours sounds really disconcerting Pat. Hope you got back to sleep quickly! Teresa xx

6

Btw Pat - well done with the weight loss. However much fruit or veg I eat does not help my constipation. Only movicol does! Teresa xx

7

Pat - sounds like a horrid nightmare :frowning:

Pam - my heels are at their worst if I’m trying to walk barefoot… in the evening I put my feet up and they’re a lot better then. Although I can’t point my toes properly on my right foot so I tend to give them a good flex and wiggle which will frequently cause the most hideous cramp! I had no idea the foot shenanigans had anything to do with MS, I though my painful feet was down to weight loss… which brings me on to the other stuff!

I’ve never taken laxatives and wouldn’t dare, I take loperamide about 4 times a week…it’s really rare that I miss a day.

Poll - I don’t know how you cope with such a wide ranging habit, that must be tough to deal with.

Ironically, whilst steroids didn’t help much with the MS, they did help a lot with my tummy so the gastroenterologist now thinks I ‘might’ have lower intestinal crohns - that’s what my colonoscopy looked like but all biopsies were normal! I think it’s one of the reasons I didn’t see it coming with MS, I was too worried about lost weight and using the bathroom so bloomin’ much - when everything else started going wrong, I thought I was losing the plot!

Sonia x

8

Well done with the weight loss Pat. I’m trying to lose some but it’s not easy, so I know how difficult that is. I’ve always had a lazy bowel so take laxatives daily, but I suppose the drugs make it worse, I take regular morphine. I’ve dramatically increased the amount of fruit I eat too.

My feet really hurt too Pam. It feels like someone has attacked mine with a baseball bat though. I have to wear soft padded slippers by the end of the day and haven’t managed to figure out what makes it worse. Most evenings every step hurts, they feel so bruised.

It looks like the heat is breaking next week which I hope will be good news for many of you. For myself I hope it doesn’t cool too much as except for fatigue, I enjoyed the warm weather which is odd as I can’t cope with hot showers which I used to love. Does anyone else have this? I suffer bad peripheral nerve pain when it’s cold.

Take care

Cath x

9

Sometimes I get what they call sleep halucinations. I kind of wake up, can’t move, feel terrified and want to scream, I feel like there is something bad in the room. But I can’t open my mouth or my eyes or move at all. Eventually I wake up all the way and everything is fine again. Worth a look up to see if that is what it was like.