Overview
Symptoms
Constipation is common and it affects people of all ages. Symptoms include:
- Not having had a poo at least 3 times during the last week
- Large and dry, hard or lumpy poos
- Straining when you have a poo
- Having a stomach ache and feeling bloated or sick
Causes
The most common causes include:
- not eating enough fibre
- not drinking enough fluids
- not moving enough
- spending long periods sitting or lying in bed
- lack of exercise
- ignoring the urge to go to the toilet
- changing diet or daily routine
- a side effect of medicine
- stress, anxiety or depression
Constipation is also common during pregnancy and for 6 weeks after giving birth and rarely, constipation may be caused by a medical condition.
Treatments
It can be treated at home with simple changes to diet and lifestyle such as:
- drinking plenty of fluids and avoid alcohol
- increasing the fibre in your diet
- adding some wheat bran, oatbran, oats or linseed to your diet
- Not delaying when you feel the urge to use the toilet
- Increasing physical activity
If these measures don’t work there are laxative treatments available from the pharmacy that can help you poo more regularly. Most laxatives work within 3 days and they Diarrhoea is passing looser or more frequent stools (poo) than is normal for you. It affects most people from time to time and is usually nothing to worry about. However, it can be unpleasant until you get better. This normally takes a few days to a couple of weeks.