Managing Your SCI Bowel

What you eat and drink is broken down by the digestive process into nutrients your body uses and waste that you eliminate. Food travels through your GI tract and the undigested food, (waste your body doesn’t use), moves into the colon from your small intestine. The waste continues to travel through the various parts of the colon into the rectum and out of the body (bowel movement).

 

In an uninjured person, when stool reaches the rectum, there is the urge to release the stool. For individuals with a spinal cord injury, this urge is impaired.  Messages to the brain signaling the urge to release the stool is often lost in transmission, therefore individuals with SCI cannot feel stool in their rectum.

 

Good bowel care includes a bowel program for the elimination of stool. It is an important part of your overall health.  A proper bowel program can help you lead a healthy life, promote independence and improve your quality of life.  

It can:

• Help prevent bowel accidents (also known as incontinence, or involuntaries)

• Boost your confidence in work and in social settings

• Give you control of a bodily function and prevent embarrassing moments

• Help prevent constipation

• Assist with your bowel program running smoothly, saving you time

• Avoid and reduce bowel-related health and other problems such as autonomic dysreflexia, urinary tract infection and pressure sores.

 

Managing your bowel is one of the best things you can do for your health.  A successful bowel program makes a big difference. 

Here are a few tips to help you get started in practicing good bowel care:

• Know your body and what may affect your bowel and how. Your bowel can also be affected by:

o Diet

o Alcohol and drugs

o Medication

o Emotional stress 

o Irregular routine, change in routine

 

• Listen to what your body is telling you. It will tell you what works and what doesn’t.

• Create a routine for your bowel program

• Keep a regular schedule e.g., every day, every 2nd day or three times per week at the same time 

• Stick with a regular technique e.g. suppositories, laxative, digital stimulation (method of using a finger to start a bowel movement)

• Eat a well balance diet with good sources of fibre e.g. fresh fruits and vegetables, dried peas and beans, and whole grain cereals and breads 

• Drinking adequate fluids

• Getting up and using a commode to the toilet if possible. Gravity helps the bowel to empty.

• Exercise regularly, 3x/week

 

Don’t forget to talk with your heath care professional about managing your bowel. Together, you can create a bowel program that works best for you.

 

More strategies for bowel care can be found in the consumer guide Understanding Your Neurogenic Bowel Management for Adults with Spinal Cord Injury.

Download Neurogenic Bowel: What You Should Know, provided by Paralyzed Veterans of America.