Green Stool

Before you panic about stool colour (and we've all done it!) try to carefully think back to what you've been eating. Gatorade or other sports drinks coloured blue, green or purple may cause your stool to have a greenish tinge. Likewise, foods such as blueberries and blackberries can cause a change in colour, everything from black to purple to green. Also, candies such as wine gums can cause changes in colour. In fact, I've had greenish stool after eating both black licorice and black wine gums.

Then there are medications and vitamins. Pepto Bismol can cause a darkening of the stool, though changes in colour range anywhere from rusty orange to black. Iron and B vitamin supplements can also cause colour changes. There may also be changes with certain antibiotics.

Definitely mention this to your doctor, but pay attention to what you're eating and what medications you're taking as as well, as more often than not, this is found to be cause of changes in colour.

Right now, I can hardly eat anything without pain so I am not eating much at all. There are so many thought running through my mind, is it Pouchities, a partial obstruction, so I am just drinking lots of fluid.

But thank you Spooky for the information. Right now, I just don't know what I am dealing with but haven't been myself for over 3 weeks.

Rocket

If you can rule out what you are eating as a cause for the green stool, then you can assume it is just bile. Basically, green stool occurs when there is very rapid transit and the bile has not had time to change color.

Bile starts out green, changes to yellow, orange, then brown.

The green color is NOT a sign of infection, but just transit time. Very rapid transit could be due to infection (like food poisoning or gastroenteritis), obstruction (yes, I know, it seems counter intuitive, but the gut works harder and faster if there is an obstruction), or food intolerance or general upset. Could even be a troublesome gallbladder. Sometimes it resolves before we figure out the cause.

Jan

Just came back from the doctor. He told me I have Pouchitis (thankfully it was not an obstruction of any kind) and its the worst he has seen it in me. He hardly scoped me at all. Since I refilled a prescription of Cirpr and Flagyl and it did not help me out this time but then again, i was not consistent with it, he gave me XIFAXAN 550MG. He gave me samples for 9 days and he said this should do the trick. The meds are very expensive.

I discussed with him this J-Pouch Forum and mentioned that a lot of the people are on Probiotics and that it has helped them quite a bit. My doctor was not sold on this because he said they have completed all the studies.

However, in this case, I believe the patients whose lives have been improved with Probiotics. Anyway, I told him if I could try it and he said yes but to wait about 3 hrs after taken the meds.

My problem is I have had not been feeling well for more then 3 weeks but delayed because i don't want to seem like a Hypocondriac but he said I waited too long (obviously).

I don't know if anyone else has been on these meds but if you have, let me know how they worked for you.

God Bless

Rocket

Probiotics are more for maintenance of remission than treatment of pouchitis. So, i would focus on the antibiotics to get into remission first. My recollection is that xifaxin is usually combined with cipro or flagyl for pouchitis treatment, for the best result. If you have the right antibiotic treatment, you should begin to see some improvement within a couple of days.

Jan

Thanks Jan. I hope so because as a member of the Knights of Columbus here in NJ, I am needed for kitchen help to cook. Thankfully, I am not the lead chef this time since its a Latin Dinner. The dinner is this Saturday, with all the prep work done the day before and I love to be a part of it.

Back in April, I was the lead chef and made two huge pots of Meat and Marinara Sauce that fed 297 people, although there was enough sauce to feed more then 400.

Can't take all the credit since I use Lidia's recepie. I love to cook Italian food making Eggplant Parm (that is a a lot of work) and Briacole, etc. I would never do this a a full time job though because then I would hate it.

Rocket

My doctor said not to take Probiotics until I finish all the meds. On this site, I have seen that I should wait 3 or 4 hrs. What do you all think?