Bowel Irritants Suck.

A Bowel Irritant is anything that makes your bowels a bit "antsy-in-your-pantsy" and give you that not so good feeling of "Uh, Oh. Where's the nearest toilet." But have no fear, Dr. Kelly is here to teach you all about bowel irritants.

What are the main bowel irritants?

1. Coffee!!

This is a big one. You have ONE SIP of your iced coffee, and two minutes later, YIKES, we gotta go! This is because coffee does stimulate the smooth muscles of the colon AND it boosts the levels of something called "Gastrin" inside our bodies, accelerating the speed of the 'stuff that will be poop in a moment' through our digestive tract.

This blog post gets into the nitty gritty of why coffee gives some of us the urge to purge, but for now, just know that for 30% of humans, and up to 70% of Vagina Owners, coffee (decaf OR regular) can stimulate the bowels to move more rapidly for 30 minutes after ingestion.

2. Greasy, Fatty, Meals

Digestion is complicated, but if we eat a fatty meal, it is going to signal the intestines to "get a moving" to make room for the inbound nutrients. Therefore eating this large meal at anytime can stimulate a poop soon after.

AND furthermore, eating this big meal on an empty stomach?? LOOK OUT BELOW, as you might be setting yourself up for diarrhea 20 minutes later ;)

3. A large amount of anything on an empty stomach

The technical name for this large amount of anything is a bolus. Say it with me, "bolus", it rhymes with "pole-us."

The bolus stimulates a poop because of a rapid stretch of the lower stomach, which again tells the intestines to "get a moving" to make room for whatever is coming down.

What to do about it?

Just being aware of the fact that these items can be bowel irritants prepares you for the potential "big urge." But if you ever DO get "the Urge" to poop, read and watch this blog post, where I ever so festively teach you how to not poop your pants. You're welcome.

Thanks for Reading!

Everybody poops! Let's all poop better together.

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Thanks for reading!

XOXO

Dr. Kelly 

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