*~*~Small White Balls In Stool*~*~

[Liz0916]

I am a 25 year old mother of 4 children, all  6 and under,  that has had ongoing problems with my bowel movements for about 2 years now.  My normal weight has always been around 110 lbs.  At first, I had loose stools that started to turn into nothing but brown liquid.  After about 2 weeks of this, I finally thought to myself "hmm... this doesn't seem normal!"  So I made an appointment with my family doctor.  My family doctor, (whom I won't even give you my thoughts about at this time!) didn't seem like he was worried about this at all.  He told me that it was just a virus or something and wanted to give me an antibiotic.  If it didn't get any better in a week then I was suppose to come back in to his office.  I was puzzled... I just told him I've had diarrhea for 2 weeks!  No tests at all????  Now I didn't go to medical school or anything, but I am a nursing assistant and have seen a lot of Poop in my day (HAHAHA), so I asked for him to order something to test my stool.  In his words, he told me "Nobody likes to do stool cultures, they are a pain in the a$$".  I left the office, got on the phone with my boyfriend and reported to him, in tears, what this dr. had just told me.  Needless to say, after the dr. talked to my boyfriend, I made a trip to the hospital and they had an order for a stool culture.  The test came back normal, except for my white blood cells being on the higher end.  This doctor made me feel like he didn't even care, so I pursued a different PROFESSIONAL.

Ok, so new and much liked family dr. didn't really know what was going on, I guess he didnt have a lot of experience with this category, & referred me to a local GI office.  We kind of danced around the idea of what was going on, until I started to experience small amounts of blood & mucus in my bowel movements.  Soon after these symptoms, I began to have to get very sharp, stabbing pains in my lower left quadrant.  The GI scheduled some blood tests and a colonoscopy.  After finding out the results of the colonoscopy, I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis.  GREAT!  There is a name for all this!  Now what?  I was put on a medicine called Asacal.  I forget the dosage, but it was 2 pills 4 times a day.  It seemed to take awhile for the pills to work, but over a few months, the loose stools and spots of blood here and there had stopped.  My pain however did not.  Trying to shorten this story up a bit here, I don't know if it was just a flair up at that time, but then stopped for a little bit..and everything started getting worse again.  I started passing good sized blood clots along with my stool along with some lighter colored blood, a lot more mucus, and my Asacal pills whole! (These were not capsules)  The GI's nurse told me that sometimes the shell of the pill didn't fully dissolve & it was nothing to worry about.  Every day I was having 3-4, or more, good bowel movements throughout the day with these pills still passing through me.  (I know, this sounds gross, but I was desperate to find out what was going on)  I took a Q-tip and pushed on this "shell", which was fairly hard and still had the medication in it.

I made an office visit with the GI Dr. & told him my symptoms.  New occurrences of weight loss and extreme fatigue had set in.  I dropped down to 93 lbs.  He told me the reason that I was so tired is because I had 4 children.  Talk about feeling like I was just slapped in the face.  Not being satisfied with this answer, and feeling like I was just a big waste of his time, I got my family dr. to refer me to a hospital with a unit that had a GI specialty office (St. Vincents in Toledo, Ohio).  This doctor ordered an endoscopy this time, and read the previous colonoscopy report.  He couldn't find anything that would back up the diagnosis of Ulcerative Colitis, and therefore I was re-diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

I am no longer on any medication for my bowel disorder, and I am having problems flare up... yet again!  About a week ago I had started losing weight again (after getting back up to 105 lbs.), lots of mucus, & black tarry stools accompanied with nausea and vomitting , which I have NEVER had before.  The little medical knowledge that I have, I know that could mean a GI bleed.  The soonest I could get in to my specialist in Toledo is a month away so I made an appointment with my family dr. The black color went away after a couple of days, but it had a white streaked throughout it.  He again ordered blood test, and a stool culture.  Again, my white blood cells were elevated, but nothing else came up.  No C-Diff., no parasites, no anemia, NOTHING... all they could tell me was that I was really dehydrated and I needed to push fluids.

So NOW, I don't have the diarrhea anymore, but my stool isn't "formed", the only way I can describe it is mush-like and it mostly floats on the water.  You know how cooking oil will float on water?  It looks like that too!  I have these little white balls that look like the insides of a beanie baby stuffed animal, and I don't know what the heck it is!  I came back negative for parasites, but something keeps telling me that there is more to these little white balls.

If ANYBODY has ANYTHING like this, please share with me!!! I am so desperate!  I'm not vomiting any more, and my nausea is getting a little bit better but I still feel so sick every time I eat. Every now and then I get the lower left quadrant pain that makes me double over. I feel so drained of my energy that it is hard to function during the day and I get winded from walking to and from different rooms of my house.  I get really bad headaches that happen in the afternoon and evening, and I know that poop doesn't smell the best, but mine is so nasty and sour smelling.  I am SO FRUSTRATED!!!  PLEASE HELP!

~Liz

[tosh1127]

Thank you for your super long medical history.  

[michell221]

I had normal blood tests before the figured out it was my GB as well.  I hurt for 2 yrs.   I had no stones either.  They did a hida scan eventually  and it finally came back saying my gallbladder was not working well.  It was at 23%.  It was called biliary dyskensia.   Usually under 35% they take it out.   I later found out that I had sphincter of oddi and thats what killed my gallbladder.  I am left with that disease and thats another story.

The thyroid level can mess with your stomach but it should not make white balls appear.  Ask a GI doctor if you can get  a hida scan to rule GB out.  

[Liz0916]

I said something to my family doctor about the pale/white stool and he did say "oooo that could mean there are issues with your gallbladder", but I guess since he was happy with the numbers that came back from that particular blood test, then he didn't really worry about it.

I just went to the ER last night because of diarrhea and vomiting, and they tried to pass it off as the stomach flu and nothing more.  After pushing for tests, besides just listening to me bellyache about how nauseous I felt,  they found that my thyroid level is low.  Just waiting on what the family doctor has to say about this.

[michell221]

Have you had your gallbladder checked.  Sometimes diarrheah is a symptom of this.  I had a couple white stools prior to my GB coming out.  This is because the bile was not able to get through and so it came out with no color.