Bathroom Talk!

I saw in another thread people talking about going to the bathroom and producing what seems to be large stools. I did a little research and discovered some interesting things about our new anatomy and why our bathroom time is so different now than it was before. Since there are so many misconceptions about it, I thought I'd share what I found out! A common complaint among WLS patients is how much stool they produce. One user on this board commented that they feel they "poop" so much they might fill their toliet. There is a reason for that... and it is the same reason that this stool floats. The common misconception about "floating stool" among WLS patients is that our rather large amounts of stool floats because of all the fat we are losing. The belief runs that the fat that is melting off our bodies is being excreted into the intestines and is leaving the system as stool and since fat floats, so does the stool. This is not true. Body fat does not leave your system through stool. Instead, body fat leaves your body by being consumed by the cells in your body. It does not "flush" out in your stool. Your body takes the fat and converts it to energy where it is burned at the cellular level. This burning process produces some waste, much like a campfire produces smoke and ashes. The "smoke" from burning our fat is exhaled as carbon dioxide. The "ash" from our burning fat is excreted through the blood cleaning organs of our body as urine. So it is breathing and peeing that gets rid of our body fat. But what makes our stool float? Well, that goes hand in hand with the other intestinal problem common among WLS patients. Gas. Floating stool is caused by an increase in gas inside the intestines. That gas mingles with the stool and we produce a stool that is much less dense than we did prior to surgery. As a result, the stool floats. Being less dense, it means the stool has a greater volume. So it "seems" that we poop much more than we consume, but in reality the gas and density make it only seem larger. So the real question is where does all this gas come from? Again, it is because of our altered anatomy that we produce all this excess gas. For us RNYers, remember that part of the sucess of the surgery comes from the malabsorption aspect? That same aspect of our surgery is what causes us to produce so much gas. In a normal stomach, food is kept nicely covered in stomach acid and is digested prior to entering the intestines. Not so with us. Instead, undigested food enters our intestines on a regular basis. The undigested food is then digested in our intestines... but here is where the problem kicks in. Our stomach digests with acid while our intestines digest with bacteria. Bacteria are living organisms. Our bacteria are increadably well fed. They attack a much larger amount of food than in a normal person. Bacteria eat the food, multiply like crazy, and excrete "digested food." A byproduct of bacterial digestion is... you guessed it... gas. A normal person creates gas too, just with less undigested food they produce less gas. We give the bacteria a feast and they reward us with lots of gas. Lots of gas makes the stool float and our spouses and friends look at us funny. And now you know WAY more about bathroom issues than you EVER wanted to. Oh, one more thing. Bacterial Digestion occurs outside the body as well. Food that "rots" is undergoing bacterial digestion. Bacteria attack the food causing it to "rot." In effect, rot is bacterial digestion. If you've ever noticed that rotting food has a bad smell, then you now know why our gas is particularly malodorous. Basically we don't digest food, we rot it.

Very interesting. I read the other day that floating poop theory. Glad it's not true cuz my poop doesn't float!! Anyway, you should also post this on the main message board because I imagine a lot of people would enjoy reading this as much as I did. Thanks for the investigative work, my friend! amy

Thanks for the whole "pop" d

WOW! This is really interesting. Like Amy, mine doesn't float either, so that means ours has less air in it? That makes sense to me as I rarely have gas. Terri

Wow good explaination. Is this why my co2 was high in my blood test last week. Thanks for the answer Barb

Holy smokes!!! That explains alot! Thanks for sharing. Now we've got "the rest of the story." Sydney

Hey it's me, big floating poop girl . Thanks for the info, altho I liked it better when I thought I was poopin fat. I knew my friends here would understand. It's funny I can talk here about this stuff, I would never talk to my hubby about it . Oh and I LOVE the site you did, it's really nice. Thank you! Micha