@emyliander Hi Emy. I see you have been on Connect for a while but this is the first time that I remember having a common interest, so I am glad to meet you through the thread that you started, although not thrilled with the problem we have in common.

I too have fecal incontinence. I went to a urogynecologist for urinary incontinence and they also deal with fecal incontinence. She sent me for pelvic floor PT which did help a bit. She also sent me to a gastroenterologist for an anorectal manometry, and my muscles are very weak. Apparently, that goes back to when my son was born, and I tore right through my anal sphincter. My son is now 38 but that was not a problem until recently, so that does seem a bit odd to me. It started being a problem after having to take immunosuppressants which caused my stools to be soft and unformed -- they classify very soft stools as diarrhea. After a very long time of trying to figure things out, I came to realize that my stool problem was primarily lactose intolerance, apparently triggered by the immunosuppressants. I do occasionally have a fecal incontinence problem even with small, formed stools though. Eliminating dairy has helped substantially.

There is little they can do for this. There is a surgical procedure but it does not have the best success rate from what I have been told. There is another procedure where they insert some type of mesh to hold the muscles up. That is supposed to have a high success rate. If you are interested I will try to find more info on it. I live in southern NH and use Boston hospitals, generally Mass General, but the only doctor who does this is at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. I have held off for now simply because I have a limit on how many doctors and medical things I can endure, and as I said above, eliminating dairy has helped somewhat. I also do not like going to the bathroom and finding a surprise on my pad. My husband reassures me that he never detects any odor though.

Here is more info from the Mayo site:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fecal-incontinence/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20351403
JK