What do most of you do to forestall diarrhea?

Try giving her one or two yogurts per day. There are some that are especially for digestive track issues. I just give him one for breakfast. Dried blueberries are a good snack or you can put some in her cereal. The BRAT diet does help also. Chicken can also be constipating in some people so if she has diarrhea you might try that.

I was advised many years ago when I had diarrhea problems while taking antibiotic to eat a cup of yogurt containing live culture each day. This is done to help maintain the normal bacterial balance in the digestive tract which is upset by the antibiotic. It has worked well for me when I've started the yogurt immediately when starting the antibiotic, not waiting until the diarrhea episodes start. Its definitely worth a try.

Oh I feel for you, this is so very hard on top of plain old caregiving. All I know is antibiotics give me diarrhea and everyone else I know, and they upset the stomach terribly. I would think combinations of immodium and antibiotics or some foods she is eating would make her system feel like it was doing the rumba. I thought it odd that the doctor would say give her immodium, but I am not a doctor and so be it, but I always have input in my own or my mother's healthcare, as I am sure you do too. I give my mother bran flakes, bananas and other fruit which naturally makes her go to the bathroom and keeps her stool from being loose, before I came she had bouts of constipation and diarrhea. I would think the more natural and less chemical route would be better for the body. Lots of water, vegetables and such. Good luck with this, I hope it works out for you, this would be a nightmare for me on top of all the other crazy stuff I have to go through with my mother, she was acting particularily crazy last couple of days and it coincidentally coincided with my cat having diarrhea for the first time in his life of 12years, go figure, arggh.

Beware of too many antibiotics. In 1994 when Yale-New Haven Hospital told me to come and get my dad, he had C-Diff. His medicare had run out and they let him out of the hospital with C-Diff. They had him on three antibiotics. I was able to get him from CT to VA by using Immodium. Afterward he had the runs for about a month, I was ready to put him in a nursing home when Lo and Behold the Dr. on weekend duty said-- How many antibiotics is he on? Take them off all of them and he prescribed methodozaline (?) and the runs stopped immediately. Even the nurse from my mother's nursing home knew about D-Diff. Today hospitals and nursing homes are more aware of C-Diff. This does not sound like your mother's problem though. My Dr. also put me on zoloft and I still take a 1/2 a pill. You are going through a rough time and my heart goes out to you.

In Europe whenever ANTIbiotics are given, its a no-brainer that they also give PRO biotics, to help restore balance of good bacteria in gut. Go to a health foods store and get quality, high bacteria count probiotics. Usually the better, live ones are kept refrigerated. In difficult cases, higher bacteria count, and more bacteria types are needed which yogurt just cant supply enough.

My mother has issues with this and her doctor suggested a daily dose of physillium (sp?). It has helped. Also my dentist suggested I take "Good Belly" a probiotic after a course of antibiotics for dental work. Its a liquid and has pleasant flavors.

Totally agree with drsuze. The product I mentioned above is in the refrigerated section. I happened to get mine at Sprouts.

Riding, what you can do will largely depend on the cause of the diarrhea and your mother's age. My mother is 90 and has had non-stop diarrhea for several years. We give her Immodium every day, but that doesn't stop the problem, it just makes the attacks a little less frequent. Her doc said that she may have IBS, but the meds he gave her for that don't really do much. He then said that she may just be at an age where her digestive system is breaking down.

When she has to leave the house for any reason, we give her some Kaopectate (in addition to the Immodium) which delays the problem, but still doesn't give her normal bowel movements. Even when we give her Kao and her bowel movements are more solid, it is extremely uncomfortable for her because she's so used to having diarrhea that a normal bowel movement is hard for her to pass.

So I guess what I'm saying is, unless the diarrhea is only a result of the antibiotics, which then makes it temporary, you may be in for a long, gross, time. We try to track the foods that trigger bad bouts, and have found that dairy and fatty foods seem to aggravate things. She eats Activia every day, but the BRAT foods actually make things worse.

Not only the elderly seem to be having more problems with diarrhea and constipation these days.A balanced natural food diet seems to work best and it takes a lot of fine tuning to get a package together that works best for each persons body type.Stress is a big factor too.My personal feeling is a lot of the fat free substitutes that are added to food products are causing many of the problems we experience.Many pharma meds can cause GI tract problems and the dosages need to be adjusted for what works best for the body chemistry.Limit caffeine intake and try to drink clean water (if you live in a big city bottled water is almost a given these days).

I understand what you're going through. Especially about having to keep outings to a minimum due to an overactive tummy. My dad had the same problem and nothing I did helped. Diet, immodium, medication changes.....

We were coming back from somewhere when the urge hit my dad. I swung into a QT and got him out of the car but he didn't make it. He stood by the hood of the car with such a pained look on his face, I'll never forget it. I ran into the store and begged for a roll of towels and tried to clean him up the best I could. It was coming out of his pants leg into his shoes (sorry to be so graphic). I papered the entire front seat with towels and got him home but from the garage to the bedroom was a trail. Then there was the bathroom to clean up. It was an all day task. From then on when we'd go out I'd make sure he was wearing Depends (even though he had them on that one time) and I stockpiled my car with incontinence supplies: Extra Depends, wipes, a sheet to lay down over the seat and then a quilted pad to go on top of that plus some plastic from Home Depot to lay on the floor of the car. It might have seemed excessive but I saw first hand what can happen. Cleaning up the house was bad enough without having to then move on to car clean up.

I wish I had some magic pill that would work but my dad had this problem for the rest of his life. Not all the time but he'd have 2 or 3 days in a row of diarrhea and none of the remedies I tried ever worked. We also talked to the Dr. about it and he suggested immodium which I had already been giving my dad and the Dr. tweaked his meds a little but the issue never really went away.

I find that immediate response with natural foods in small portions can help a lot. As folks here have said - drink water - NOT the 8 oz at a time that so many people tell you - I don't drink a whole glass at a time myself. But a few sips, then a few minutes later, pass the glass again - even doing this 2-3 times helps. And if it feels like diarrhea - gingerale, with or without ice. Tea and toast. Simple food, whatever they like, in a small portion even in between meals, then distract and repeat as needed. I've persuaded the MD to stop antibiotics before the 10 days, like on day 7 or 8, if infection is gone, and if elder is small - I don't know why they prescribe one size fits all, considering the variety in body types. And as normal prevention - I've renewed the focus on water and some greens, and any ripe fruit is an excellent laxative.

Sorry to overwhelm with so many tactics but here is something to consider. At about the age of 75 my Mom had diarahea for more than ten years and they tried everything.... they managed to rule out the medicines she was taking. I don't know that it had the urgency the gentleman in the story had in the car, but it was bothersome to her. She ate yogurt as a primary staple in her diet her whole life, whole fat yogurt, so trying yogurt would not have helped her. However she also drank a lot of milk daily. When she switched to milk that was lactose free (or used the pills that negate lactose), her diarrhea stopped. To support this, I have read that we can develop an intolerance to lactose as we age. Good luck, I hope that you can find a solution.

Yes, there are so many things to factor into the equation....I believe that for my mom, stress is a really big factor, plus the antibiotics from all the UTI's she ends up with! Her doctor has recommended we try a Metamucil product and this seems to be helping with the fiber intake and keeping things to a minimum. The hard part is figuring out a good time to give it because it has to be either two hours prior or two hours after she has taken her other meds....have narrowed it down to just before bed time for her! I find that overall, she is not "regular" at all anymore and that doesn't make things easier either. Been through everything everyone else is talking about....it has to be so much worse for them than for those of us who have to clean them up.

If she doesn't like Yogurt (my parents hate it) Acidophilus is a probiotic. You can pick up drops in whole foods and add it to a beverage.
Also, as someone that suffers from IBS, Metamucil is a soluble fiber that helps absorb moisture..bulking up the stools. It is not a laxative, more of a stool normalizer. Immodium IMHO, should not be used on a regular basis.

Probiotics and fiber could both help. Be very careful with Immodium, my Mom would take it even when she was already impacted and just leaking around the hard stool. And for some people, the natural anti-inflammatory compunds in dairy products (some alpha globulins in the whey fraction in particular I think) will be very much missed if they give it up.

It sounds like your mom needs a strong does of really good probiotics. Go to your local health food store to get some. Antibiotics destroyed my intestinal flora. The only way to keep my digestive tract in tact is with probiotics every day. Yogurt has probiotics but not enough to re-balance her body. You also want one that has more than just acidophilus in it. That is one strain of healthy bacteria but you need all the strains. Your health food store should be able to help.

You know that ad that Jamie Lee Curtis does for activia yogurt, I heard is good.

I seem to be going through that same problem currently so I have written down some of the suggestions.
It took me a number of years to get my wife fine tuned (she is 68 now) and was diagnosed with cortical basal degeneration 9 1\2 years ago. Starting in april of 2012 she began having urinary tract infections about once a month. Finally I suggested to our GP that maybe I should take her to a urologist. I sometime think the more people know, the more they have forgotten. I hope that makes sense.
Anyway the urologist prescribed a high powered antibiotic for a week and a lower dose of nitro fer mac on a daily basis.
I don't remember how long it took, but it was not long before the diarrhea took over out lives. It was all over the house and the bathroom was a mess and she was having blood and black stools. When I called the urologist he told me to call the GP to get it taken care of. Instead of monthly UTIs, they were stretched out to every 6 weeks.
In April we went to Grandparent's day at our granddaughter's school. There gets to be a time when you never pass a bathroom and I took Judy into one of the staff bathrooms to help her. Nothing happened and I got her up and went to pull up her pants when the diarrhea started. This had not been a big problem before. Anyway, once it started there was no stopping it. It just kept coming and coming. I used up all the paper towels in the bathroom and since we had been in there a long time one of the teachers knocked on the door to see if we needed help. I let her stay with Judy while I ran out to the car to get the extra clothes that I brought along. I just threw everything she had in the trash.
After a while, the principal knocked on the door and said she used to be a CNA when she went to college. She finished helping me clean up Judy and got a wheel chair so I could go to our granddaughter's event. We got there with about 10 minutes to go.
The diarrhea lasted for a couple more days and I took her to the emergency room where they diagnosed CDIF. They told me to take her home and see that she gets plenty of water. Because of the CBD, she has difficulty swallowing and getting 3 glasses of water in her in a day's time is a monumental task so I asked to have her admitted to a hospital or a nursing home.
She was kept o an IV for the 3 days she was at the hospital and I happened to be outside the door when a couple of the aids were cleaning her up after one of the episodes. I could hear one of them say "oh that poor guy", referring to me. I had the hospital release her to a nursing home for 3 weeks because it is more than one person can handle.
Judy was in great shape other than the UTIs before we saw the urologist. Since then she has developed gout which I can't seem to do anything with and now the C-Diff with multiple bouts of diarrhea when it occurs. Our doctor did tell me several weeks ago to give her one dose of Immodium which seemed to help. That was the day when I had to get the carpet cleaners in on an emergency basis to clean up the dining room carpet. So now I have been giving her half the immodium dose when she has the first runny stool and that seems to help for about a day and a half.
I tried to get a stool sample yesterday to take in and get tested but of course nothing happened until after 9 pm when the clinic was closed.
Getting back to the original question, I took Judy off milk products years ago. I buy her either coconut or almond yogurt, coconut milk and although not totally organic her diet is probably 80 to 90 percent. The biggest factor I found was soy products. I eliminated soy products about a year and a half ago and that solved a lot of her problems. Soy seems to be in about 90 percent of our food, so you have to read every label, even on medications. When I first starting checking I spent several hours in the grocery store each week. Now, I pretty much know what has soy in it, but still double check the labels before I put things in the cart.
As a side note, since we eliminated the soy, I do not have to get up as much during the night to use the bathroom myself. And if I go to a fast food place or something, I end up getting up several times during the night.

I'm not sure this is helpful to anyone, but my mom was dealing with chronic diarrhea.. nothing worked or worked for long. Doctors all just said it was IBD or didn't know. Live on immodium .. which didn't work all that well. One day at
88, I just took away all gluten. She was instantly better, and I know for some people it can takes weeks, months or never be healed. Along with the gluten .. I also took away dairy. She is now close to 96 and diarrhea has never been an issue again. I mention this, in that it can't hurt to go without gluten for a week or so, if you are desperate to try something else. Doctors can't believe
that this was the cause... but she no longer takes flagyl or immodium ... and was on that kind of stuff for 40years, so it is hard to imagine that it is not true. She is in many ways in better health at 96 than she was decades ago.

My 94 yo mother is as described by Eyerish. She does little to control it, besides Depends. She is quite hard to take care of at the NH.

I on the other hand take 4 benefiber pills at night and 4 in the morning. Also, I might take an amodium AD at night. It controls it 95% of the time.

I would like to endorse some of the other suggestions here. My Dad doesn't like yogurt (active culture) but he did eat some after a course of antibiotics and that helped re-establish the bacteria in his gut. Also, it seems counter-intuitive, but Citrucel helped his non-stop diarrhea. He still has occasional bouts and I treat those with anti-diarrhea OTC meds. The problem with daily Immodium is they build up a tolerance so you have to keep giving more of it to produce the same effect. Every patient and every day is an experiment to see what works. I sympathize with the overwhelming clean up that diarrhea can cause. Hugs to you.

My 82 year old Dad has intermittent bouts of "instant" diarrhea...he had his gall bladder out about 10 years ago so any fatty or rich foods can start it up. I go for low fat whenever I can but he loves cream sauces and mac n cheese. Usually he is ok with one serving in a week bur if he has more than than that or 2 days in a row, it is disaster for him. His GI also suggested a high fiber diet which has helped tremendously...there are a lot of foods that are sneaky high fiber that a picky eater may not even notice, like Pepperidge Farm whole grain white bread, acorn squash etc. I have also tried to limit his red meat intake. Good luck, you are not alone in this. I also have a "go bag" with spare underwear, disposable underwear, wipes plastic bags, spare socks, lysol wipes hand gel and chux. This goes everywhere with us, sometimes it can stay in the car, sometimes not :)

My mother-in-law had this problem. The doctor asked what she was eating and drinking. Among the items was coffee 2-3 cups a day, ice cream and milk chocolate candy bars. He said to cut out all dairy but she could have dark chocolate because there's no dairy in it. He said coffee was like a laxative when you get old. He said 2-3 cups of coffee was like giving her a laxative 2-3 times a day. We cut all of these items out of her diet and it improved it a lot but didn't entirely eliminate it. She had to poop a certain amount each day or she'd say she was constipated. My father-in-law is the same way. If he doesn't think he's pooped enough, he'll take a Phiillip's milk of magnesia. Then he gets loose bowels and takes Pepto Bismol. This makes him constipated so he takes Phillip's. I told his doctor and she told him to stop doing that but he won't listen. He'll poop and not flush it until my husband comes home and looks at it. I'll go in there and practically get knocked out by the smell so I flush it. He complains that he wanted Andy to look at it before flushing it. It drives me nuts.

I'm an advocate for the probiotics. Currently, we do about a tablespoon of a liquid form that gives 10billion cells per dose. There are products that go as high as 30billion cells. Took about a week for us to see a difference, but the stool is definitely tighter. Yay, us!

Then, after several rounds of antibiotic treatments for recurrent UTIs, it started again. Personally, I have an issue with tylenol and advil such that if I take a bit too much, I get the runs. So, we took a look at her daily doses of tylenol (for palliative pain relief) and were able to cut those back, too, without any noticeable difference in her pain. Hurray! No more diarrhea!

It's really a balancing act. If there are meds that can be considered PRN (as needed), then we alter them, within the doctor's parameters, until we get good results.

One other possibility, from a nutritional approach: Good bowel movements need the right amount of fiber. If the diet doesn't have enough, adding something fiber additives (like benefiber or citracal) might make a difference, too.

Good luck. Diarrhea isn't fun for ANYone.

Oh Eyerishlass, how I can empathize with you. My dad was the same way until the day before he died. It was just awful. He was always so embarrassed. My mom currently has had diarreaha for 30 years. I was giving her a big teaspoon of fiber in her drink every morning and that seemed to help. Lately I've been giving her two of the gummy 'candies' you can get anywhere now that have fiber in them. They seem to help and to her it's just a couple pieces of candy that she loves. She always wants more. I give those to her at night so by 11am when we do the toilet stuff, she's usually good to 'go' and I have no other trouble with her until the next day. Sometimes the elderly don't get enough fiber and that can be the problem too. But IBS is very difficult to treat and my mom has had that for over 30 years.

Crohn's disease (old name - colitis) and IBS (both presenting w/ symptoms of chronic diarrhea and/or constipation, often alternating between them) can b caused by so many things - MIGHT b provoked by natural aging, stress, diet, illness, antibiotics (especially clindamycin in my experience), etc.

l echo the comments re: pro-biotics as yogurt is mostly only a stop-gap w/ not enuf active live cultures AND if it eaten incorrectly, what IS in it is destroyed in the stomach. IMO, if u want to depend on yogurt, it must be "plain" and eaten on an empty stomach. The culturing process of yogurt pre-digests the lactose and turns the yogurt acidic. When this contacts an empty stomach, the body senses that further digestion is unnecessary and the yogurt is passed unscathed thru to the small intestine where the friendly bacteria is used to rebalance healthy intestinal flora. If fruit and/or sugar are in the yogurt, the body senses that digestion IS required and the yogurt is held up in the stomach and subjected to the high biological digestive heat of the stomach doing its work, thus killing off most of the yogurt's active cultures which are heat sensitive.

Next, after reviewing all the responses so far, no one has mentioned wheat. Please google "celiac disease" - the inability to process the gluten in certain grains, wheat being the primary culprit in the American diet. Without diligence, it is diff NOT ti eat wheat 5 or 6 times per day (all 3 meals & snacks) since our SAD (Standard American Diet) includes so many processed foods and it's diff to find processed foods that don't contain wheat in some form.

Bowel problems are common not only in celiac but also in folks with wheat sensitivity. Here's the thing, some young ppl much healthier than the seniors we are caring for here are NOT diagnosed, and suffer with, celiac for sometimes 8 to 12 years before "discovery". There is definitive testing for celiac but no such thing for gluten sensitivity. The only way to know is to gluten from the diet COMPLETELY for at least 2 months (!), then see if one feels better. Celiac and gluten sensitive patients often have a myriad of health problems "spontaneously (and thankfully) disappear" when gluten is out of their lives.

This has been a long post. I'll leave it 2 those of you to which this concept has vibration to do your research or post more questions...

2stressedout, I hope you can keep a sense of humor about your challenges. Your post made me laugh. Yesterday my Dad and I had a tug-o-war over his dirty diaper. He thought he would wash it and re-use it. I made a joke out of the whole thing and we ended up laughing. He's about 2 years old, as far as mental abilities, stubbornness, etc. so I have to use all my diplomacy, tact and bribery to keep him fed and clean. Hugs and a prayer to you!

Ha ha, baby lettuce, you just reminded me. My mom used to try to wash her depends. They r so super absorbent, use some kind of gel. It would stiffen up. She liked 2 go 2 the b/r hersekf, most often just 4 urination. If she didn't come back out in short order, l'd gi in 2 check. She'd already have the pullups off & wet in the sink, just starting to pick apart the pants 2 "get rid of this hard stuff" and "lookit this...you got the wrong things..." Hahahahaha

Thanks guys!

Dr. Suze and dheh51,she actually, does take probiotics, but nothing that has to be refrigerated. I do have her taking a high number of bacteria, but didn't know about higher number of different types, but that makes sense. I'll check into the good stuff, thanks for the info!

Twotone and Roberts, she also eats yogurt, which is the one dairy product that our chiropractor (who helps me monitor and access things, as she is very wholistic) suggested. I'm not sure where to find yogurt with live cultures? I have seen them with probiotics, is that the same thing?

Mother has had stomach problems her entire life. Before her accident, it wasn't unusual for her to have bouts of diverticulitis and diverticulosis (she doesn't remember this however). Her doc, when I've mentioned stomach pains that she complains of, says it's this or that but hasn't taken any scans in quite some time. I have noticed that when she eats greasy foods this will happen... and that could be due to a bad gall bladder, at her age, for all we know. It's rare that I will give her anything super greasy, although on an outting we may be bad and have onion rings from Sonic :-). Madea, she eats oatmeal every single morning and has for many many years, although this morning she wanted some of that fresh cantaloupe and some OJ So, I can identify the problem some time but, for the most part, there seems to be no apparent reason. She does have a huge hernia in the lower part of her abdomen, and has had it for years, but don't think that could be causing it.

Oh, and she does wear diapers, already, eyerishlass. She can't walk by herself. And it's only been very recently that I've been able to get her on a public toilet, without a 2nd person to help... but it's not easy and wears us both out (and I usually have to fuss at her, because she wants to hold onto things, which keeps me from moving her, but she's getting better about doing what I ask, when I ask, so that I don't give out and drop her... I tell her it's like a dance... and I'm the LEAD ... that she can't lead if I'm going to be the one helping her... when she tries to lead, all the weight goes on me, she's bad about not wanting to stand tall, then, so as her own skeleton helps to bare the weight!)... I sure wouldn't ever attempt that when she's about to have diarrhea! And even with the diaper on, it doesn't always help! There have only been two times, knock on wood, where she didn't make it in time, and she wasn't even aware either time, although she did accuse me of messing my pants??? Lol! I have spent many a night getting her out of bed and onto the toilet, over and over and over... and that's usually a 20 to 30 minute time frame, or more... and putting her back into bed, tucking her in just right, with oxygen (another 15 to 20 minutes), then I'd go back to bed, in 10 minutes she's got to go again. I can tell you, if ever I get grumpy, those are the times. I finally have started putting her in a chair in the bedroom, during those times. At night I am not as strong so taking her in and out of bed so many times, during the night, just wears me down and kills the muscles... not to mention her. Let's not mention sleep deprivation... I swear to God, my mother pees and poops all day long every day...especially in the morning. Seems I can get nothing done, because no sooner than I get started she calls for me. If she naps, that cuts down on the number of visits but as soon as she wakes up she's gotta go. By evening, she's settled down... but then I'm all tired out...

I always thought physillium made you go, not stop it.

She's not on antibiotics very much and that's the first time it gave her such horrible diarrhea, it was the wrong kind of antibiotic, they say, that did it... she does have uti issues, another thing she's struggled with most of her life... and the last time it gave her dementia like symptoms, even though her doc said he didn't think so... but the ER nurse sure said so, as have several articles I've read.

Right after she got over her diarrhea bout, she started asking for more to drink. I'd always tried to get her to drink more fluids, other than at meal times, but she never would. After the bout, she was asking in between... and that's great! But, I did notice her skin has that dehydrated look to it, lately, although it didn't look so bad before. I just wonder if I should be concerned, as she is really drinking more, but not sure how long it takes for her skin to bounce back. And this morning her urine had this funny odor to it, the same odor that she had when she had the UTI, although it's not dark or cloudy... I described the odor to the doc, who didn't seem particularly concerned, but I thought perhaps it may have been an indicator of something in particular... it smelled like burnt toast of something weird like that. She's diabetic, on top of everything else, and I am constantly worrying about her kidneys.

Eyerisheyes, I went out and bought a fancy diaper bag a couple of months ago. It's stocked with extra diapers, wipes, advil, immodium, thickener, diabetic supplies, zip-loc bags, windshield sun blockers/shade makers, sunglasses, note pads and pens, appointment book, umbrella and sugary candy ... oh and drinking straws and a place for her own drinking cup... and it serves as my purse, too, when I take her out and about... we even bought a baby monitor that day :D Bless your dad's heart, I know that had to be so awful for him.

Thanks everyone, I'll be checking into your suggestions.

Again, lots of good info, thanks a lot folks! Even when I took her off milk and even cheese, she soooo loves cheese sandwiches, she still had bouts of it, anyway. Thanks for the info on soy, I will definitely be checking into that, Bob... and on gluten, mpatricia. I am already a label reader, and family can get quite agitated with me, if they are sitting, because I take so long in the grocery... and she gets tired out if she's with me. One of the products I've been concerned with is carrageenan, as my cat was having stomach problems and found, while researching that, that carrageenan is in so many products, you wouldn't believe it, yogurt is one of them... carrogeenann causes inflammation in felines, why not humans?... and it can be found in many organic products... just FYI... when she first came home we did have her taking something like metamucil... but I really thought it was to make her go, and she obviously didn't need that... then again, they had her on a stool softener and a laxative... and I weened her off of both those... but sounds like it may be something to add to her diet on a regular basis. She gets fresh veggies and fruits all the time, but guess her system is just way out of whack.

Bob, my hat goes off to you! You are an outstanding husband!

Again, thanks, lotsa info here to explore. I'd like to stop with the artificial stuff too... and make it happen with just the foods in her diet.