Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Foods to Help to completely evacuate?

No, I don't know if it constipates particularly because it is made of rice, which is mainly starch. I think it's too watery to fall in that category. I am not familiar with the particular mechanism rice milk causes constipation, but it is pretty effective.

When I was a little kid, and had diarhea (say after eating something bad, or just catching a cold or something), my mom would boil rice and give me the water it boiled in to drink (she'd overboil it, of course). That's not the same as rice milk (it doesn't have all the added oil and the rest of the stuff they add). But I find both things very effective in treating diarhea.

I used to drink rice milk initially when I was diagnosed with IBS (and thought milk was a trigger for me, and was following the EFI diet to the T and discovered I couldn't stand the taste of soy milk) and my constipation worsened very much. Of course I was also on the BTC diet for awhile and that's was affecting my constipation a lot too. It was soothing, but my body didn't want to go at all.

I had to start taking a prescription laxative (Miralax) to normalize the situation of not going for weeks at a time and having to take dulcolax on some weekends (that was terrible).

So, I stopped the rice milk (didn't really like the taste anyway) and switched to almond milk and hazelnut milk (mmm, taste nice, although not like dairy milk) and had some improvement. Not a total improvement, don't get me wrong, I am not blaming my C on the rice milk. It was contributing though.

Anyway, judging from the bloating some people on this board have, my case of bloating is only a mild one. I don't know if rice milk would cause it or not, because I always feel bloated when I am constipated (but always to a small degree, it hardly shows, I don't have to wear much larger clothing and all that...) Thus I have no personal experience to contribute to whether rice milk would worsen your bloating, it might worsen your constipation though (as it did for me).

You might just have to give it a try and see for yourself. I don't know how many C-ers on this board use rice milk, but that might be a useful statistic.

About SF -- no, I don't think anyone meant SF constipates. It SOOTHES the gut, increases the amount of stuff in your bowel, thus it might even help evacuate (provided it is taken with a lot of water so that it can bulk up your stool), although I don't think it would be the driving factor. What SF does is it ALOWS you to have some IF.

So, say you need a ratio of SF to IF of at least 1:1 to not be in pain. That's just an example. Now, you have a completely safe meal that also contains 3 grams of SF. With that meal, you can safely have up to 3 grams of IF. If you didn't have the SF then you would not be able to eat the IF without painful consequences. Now, that you had the IF, though, it will work to make you go. The SF will help you not be in pain because of the IF.

Say you only had the 3 grams of SF and no IF. Then, if you had much water with the meal (or during the day) the SF would swell in your gut. It would make your stool be larger in volume and your gut will want to get rid of it at a point. Not as soon as it would get it out with the 3 grams of IF, but still sooner than it would had you not eaten the SF.

For C, many C-ers on this board find Natural Calm very effective. I found a generic version in the local Duane Reade farmacy, Magnesium citrate it's called, and it's also very effective (if you are not up to ordering natural calm online and spending a lot of money on it... the generic version is cheaper. Let me know if you take that, though, to tell you the dosage you're supposed to take it in). Sometimes, you need to take something like natural calm, while you are on the BTC diet, just so your gut can calm down and you would still be able to go. That's what I had to do (I had to take the prescription thing, but switched to the generic Mag Citrate) and I am stable now, thanks to Heather's diet (which calmed my gut down and educated me on how to eat).

That is my experience. I hope it can be helpful.

--J

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