Spaghetti and Impaction

Stool impactions probably aren’t what most people would consider an “emergency” … until they actually have a stool impaction. Personally, I wouldn’t wish a stool impaction on someone. In chronic constipation, more and more stool collects in the colon until size of the ball of stool is too big to pass through the opening to the outside world. The major function of the colon is to absorb water from the stool, so the longer the stool sits in the colon, the larger the amount of water that gets absorbed, and the harder the blob of stool gets. By the way – the whole water absorbing function of the colon is why it is important to keep well hydrated to maintain good bowel habits. There are a lot of ways that you can try to get rid of a stool impaction, but when the stool gets hard enough, pretty much the only way to remove the impaction is by having someone use their fingers to perform a “disimpaction.” There’s just no good way to get a big hunk of stool the consistency of clay soft enough for it to pass through the rectum. It has to be dug out. Disimpactions aren’t fun for the doctor or the patient. They’re painful and obviously messy. I’m probably more willing than most docs to perform disimpactions because I can see how much the patients are suffering. Although unpleasant, disimpactions are an easy fix to the patients’ problem. Like I said, you probably can’t appreciate how bad impactions are until...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: Tags: Funny Patient Encounters Source Type: blogs