Has anyone had sigmoid colon removal and have bowel incontinence?

I had a lower anterior resection near the sigmoid colon with resulting bowel incontinence 4 years ago and found that weekly doses of psyllium husk and a daily soluble fiber diet (oatmeal, e.g ) help along with low residue foods. Hycosamine Rx assists with flare-ups. Good luck!

Welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect, @pjdm.

I'm tagging fellow members who have talked about a sigmoid colon removal to see if they have had any experience with bowel incontinence afterward @gwix98 @ciebrown @jdkh @sunny1971. @ch47 @lily2023 also may have some input for you.

I had a sigmoidectomy on July 7 with a foot of my bowel removed. I had two years of recurring diverticulitis before the surgery. When they removed my bowel, I still had diverticulitis and apparently it had never gone away. It was always simmering/smoldering in the background. I also had a stricture from scar tissue from the diverticulitis that would have eventually closed up and caused emergency surgery. Because I chose the surgery before that happened I did not have an ostomy.
Bowel incontinence has been terrible, but I am finally getting most of it under control and starting to socialize again.
I was told by the surgeon after the surgery that I could eat anything I wanted. It was such bad advice and I’ve needed to learn to manage food.
Everyone’s different in their healing process.
I had unexpected bleeding for a few weeks around the second and third week. And then had motility issues which caused me to be in the bathroom 15 to 20 times a day with tiny amounts passing. Now what I’m having is called clustering which means I go some every day and then by the fifth or sixth day I empty my bowel completely.
I think I could have escaped the severity of those issues if I had been given better advice about diet.
Sorry that this is such a long post, and not sure if any of this will be helpful to you in the decisions that you make.
I sympathize with the incontinence! It’s so hard and embarrassing to deal with.

I am 3 weeks postoperative and trying to sort out my bowel schedule. Still too much gas with too little poop and too often. Got the same regular diet advice. Also had C Diff 5 days after surgery. That sucks. Took fidaxomicin for ten days and just finished.

So sorry to hear that Don💔
Hopefully time will make things better for you.

I just found out I have EPI and started taking creon . I’m having trouble swallowing the two pills with every meal, they keep getting stuck but do go down but it’s making me very anxious. Anyone else dealing with this?

@sowlesister1 My question is: Do you have problems with other medications, tablets, or capsules? I take three Creon 36000-unit capsules with every meal and two with each snack. I don't have trouble swallowing them. That may be because I'm used to taking a large number of tablets/capsules every morning.

@fred41 I have always somewhat struggled with taking large pills or the lightweight capsules but I usually manage but these creon pills just seem to get stuck every time

I don't know the name of the tablet; however, there is another medicine tablet smaller than the Creon capsule to treat EPI. The tablet is smaller than the Creon capsule. If I am not mistaken, you would have to take more tablets to get the same results as the Creon 36000 capsule. I hope someone in this discussion group can post the name of the tablet.