My stool softeners and miralax aren't working, how come?

@kb1955
I understand that some medications can cause constipation. You might try a product called Calm. It is a magnesium powder that you mix with water and take at bedtime. It works pretty well for me and others who have posted on Connect. You can purchase it at a market (in the aisle where they sell vitamins and other supplements), at a health food store, or online.

In addition to helping with constipation, it is also great for sleep.

Dont roll your eyes, but I must ask: ARE YOU WALKING? 1/2 hr. per day. Outside. The vagus nerve needs stimulation to make digestion work. I completely identify with these problems, but I have found that our bodies MUST MOVE and not just inside the house.

You need 8 oz of water w each of those. Water really helps move things when you take MiraLAX or it doesn’t work well.

@momma212 so the baking soda helped. What was the amount?

Have you tried slippert elm? Se3 facebook for info re miralax...can cause bladder pain. I burned 3 months

@lauracbaker

I added 30 min. of fast walking a day every day about 6 months ago and so far it's done nothing to help with my digestion. (Haven't lost even an ounce of weight either.) Does it take longer than 6 months to work?

@h8bigbiz I'll bet it is improving your mood and your heart strength, at the very least. Muscle weighs more than fat; I don't believe walking has helped me loose weight either, but it's kept me "fit". As for digestion, if walking hasn't helped that issue, there must be another problem. Dairy stops my digestion, but I know others wouldn't have that issue. Every body is different. Keep searching and trying other things. I hope you will let us know what you discover. The Docs certainly don't have a good handle on digestion.

@h8bigbiz

How about slow walking, looking at the trees, noticing the clouds, breathing deeply. I'm not kidding. When you get home, eat a simple salad and sit outside if you can. Bring along a bottle of water and fill it up 5 times during the day. Take another half hour walk and come back and do the same thing again. A little ovo (olive oil), a squirt of lemon, some dried Italian herbs. Eat slowly. Think about your breathing more than your weight. Eat some fruit and nuts when you get hungry. Nibble rather than devour food and enjoy each bite. Wishing you well with your goals.

@lauracbaker

Thanks for the kind words, however, I know all this walking hasn't replaced fat with muscle because my clothes still fit the same. And I know it hasn't improved my mood because the whole time I'm walking I'm thinking "I'd rather be reading or be online than doing this boring old physical sh*t!" So I'm about ready to dispense with the walking; I swear my digestion's gotten worse since starting it. Since I was born with this almost non-functional digestive tract, I've spent close to a quarter of a century and have tried everything (so has every medical professional I've consulted) and nothing has worked so I'm pretty sure there's nothing left to try; thanks anyway, though for the kind words.

@midnightwalker

Thanks for the suggestions. However, I was told by an allergist that since I'm allergic to mold, my best bet is to stay inside since people allergic to mold need to live where it's cold and dry all the time and the only places like that are the North Pole, the South Pole and northern Greenland. (It's usually too hot and smoky--more and more wildfires here every year--around here anyway.) I keep trying to convince my husband to move somewhere with stores and the library near enough that I could walk to and around in; now that's my kind of walking, lol.

I also am not supposed to eat nuts, greens since I have diverticulosis and am allergic to most fruits because of the citric acid or extreme flavor (only fruits I can get away with eating are canned pears and apricots since they have little flavor; every time I try to eat something with much flavor I get a strong stinging sensation in my cheeks in front of my ears; supposedly it's an inherited adrenal gland reaction to flavor.) I'm afraid that I've inherited that darn northern European thing of only being able to digest meat and dairy products; I actually met someone like me who for 2 years had been eating nothing but meat and dairy products and was feeling better than she had in her whole life; I lost contact with her before I could advise her to either take a multivitamin or eat a lot of animal innards, liver, tripe, etc.