FQ,
You are fighting nature...one of the things that we tell people who are constipated to do is to go for long walks to get the intestines moving...So, yup...it will stimulate you...I work out early in the morning, before breakfast...it is the only time that I feel comfortable enough to really work out...or late at night if I don't eat dinner.
Sharon

The only time I have time to hit the gym is after dinner so I know what you mean. I usually eat a very light dinner and make sure I go to the bathroom before I leave and I am usually fine with out being uncomfortable. You are also still adjusting since 4 months isn't that long yet so things will continue to improve. I would love to be able to exercise in the morning before work....that would be ideal....but I'm too busy getting my kids ready for school.

This is normal at 4 months. In the early days I always exercised near bathrooms. This will improve in time.

Sue

thanks for the reassurance. i hope it will continue to get better. last night, before the gym, i tried lomotil and had to strain a lot!!! but then without the lomotil i was going every 2 hours :/

how to you guys keep the balance with lower frequency but no straining?

I just can't take stuff like Imodium....it clogs me up something fierce and I hate that feeling. I would rather have it free flowing!

That was my experience with lomotil too, fq. You might try taking half the dose and see if that works better.

Sue

i would get off the imodium in a heart beat. fq might agree but i too am in the can non stop cause of increased spasms without it. rice etc will def slow things down but doesnt touch the spasms and then i struggle trying to empty. hope that improves soon. the spasms makes my sphincter achy almost like bruised...

Exercise usually shuts my system up for awhile. I guess I'm kinda backwards in that regard. If I feel like I may have to use the bathroom within the next hour and I go of and do something strenuous (like karate or something), I won't have to go for a good few hours after the workout. Maybe my guts just know I'm busy

If lomotil doesn't work, give hyoscine butyl bromide (buscopan) a shot. It's another antispasmodic. Works for me.

I have bathrooms marked on my routes, just in case... I carry sample packs of balneol, calmoseptine and flushable charmin. Many bathrooms on runners routes do not have toilet paper! It has become less of an issue over time.

Bathrooms on runner's routes don't have toilet paper? Why is that? That doesn't seem very fair to runners.

kathy

I think all of us who are active with exercise have experienced the same. And as was noted, it very much gets better with time !! hang in there......

I tried many different combinations regarding exercise.... I exercised mornings, afternoons, evenings... tried eating before, not eating before etc....

what works best for me is use your anti-diarrheal of choice and then do your exercise. If you end up having to go to the bathroom then my feeling is make sure you get your money's worth !! try to do as much output as possible on that bathroom stop. Then when you go back to exercise, if you feel some urges, movement etc... don't immediately give in. Remind yourself that you have empty capacity down there. (Wearing a pad does help just in case you get a little leakage)...... If you can resist the urge to immediately head back to bathroom you might find as I do that the urges dissipate and you can get a long stretch of exercise in.......

regardless of what you do for the immediate present... it very much gets better and better over time.....