My Mom's (80) bowels are never consistant and firm anymore. Looks like mush. Any advice?

This happened to my uncle. He got dehydrated & passed out. He was admitted to the hospital where it was determined he had a highly contagious bacterial infection. The aunt has frequent diarreah...possible due in part to medications. A huge problem is I try to fix healthy meals but they refuse to eat them. One would think at their age & growing up where a garden was part of their lives that they would like a variety of vegetables. Not so. Hope a solution for her is found. It is no fun having to deal with soiled clothing & sheets and poop all over the toilet & bathroom floor, rugs...

Mom use to be on Aricept and all it seem to do for her is give her horrible diarrhea 3x week. I took her off them 5 months ago. Not only does she not get diarrhea, anymore, her mood has improved. Her stool is still fairly soft, so I sneak in some rice, which helps to tighten every up. Don't feed rice every day, as it can cause constipation.

Yes, check what meds she is on. This happened to my dad after he began an antidepressant because of the effect of excess seratonin on the gut. The other concern is bacterial infection. This should be discussed with her doctor and a stool sample culture done to rule out bacterial or parasitic infection first. She will not be absorbing nutrients of she has excessive BM's and loose stools.

The drink Boost gave my Mom diarrhea..took time to figure it out, but once she stopped drinking it the diarrhea stopped.

Give your Mum Probiotics you get them from a health food store and store them in the fridge. Is medication causing it?

Write down what she is eating, all of it. Then talk diet with the MD. He can sort it out and decide what the problem is.

You have gotten some good advice. I would suspect one of two things -- the gut is moving too quickly perhaps because of a medication, or your mother has developed a food sensitivity. Some medications can have a laxative effect, so you may want to have her doctor make some changes. If it isn't a medication, perhaps she has become sensitive to milk, wheat, or corn. Maybe you'll notice some patterns in what she is eating and how loose her bowels are.

There are other things that may cause the problem, e.g. bacterial infection or irritable bowel syndrome or use of artificial sweeteners. Since she is dumping mainly after meals, however, it seems it has more to do with her bowel moving too fast. I hope her doctor will be able to find the culprit so she doesn't have to run to the bathroom after eating and risk dehydration. Please let us know what the doctor thinks.

You may want to look up dumping syndrome to get some ideas of things that can help. I doubt that your mother had surgery, but some of the tips about diet may help. It may be that something as simple as reducing carbs, not drinking at meal time, or adding guar gum might help. Of course, talk to her doctor before doing any of these things. Your family and doctor will know best.

If your Mum is not having a proper bowel movement is may be overflow where she is blocked high up in the bowel and only a watery type of stool is coming down and it usually smell very bad. Give her Probiotics. Keep reading doctors research on line. You will find all the latest reseach which your doctor will not have read

My Mom has had chronic diarhhea for as long as I can remember. We tried eliminating gluten, dairy had been eliminated previously, did not help. Doc suggested adding a probiotic to her daily pill regimen. VOILA! And unbelievable Mom had been suffering with this for years. I bought her Super Probiotic, Walgreens brand. But beware, my Mom is in the late middle stages of Alzheimer's Disease and I was concerned about the probiotic actually working because when she had to go it had been as easy as turning on a faucet. We ended up in the ER once because she was constipated. Based on the consistency of the BM (and there was alot if it), ER staff did not think she should have had a problem. She just had to work at it and I think she just doesn't understand that.