Yellow stool after Total Abdominal Colectomy

[alwaystired24]

At the end of August I had a Total Abdominal Colectomy with ileorectal anastomosis. As predicted I have bowel movements that are loose soon after I eat. The liquid portion of these stools over 80% of the time are yellow. Bright yellow...not urine yellow. Is this normal? Thanks for your replies.

[alwaystired24]

thank you so much for responding!

[Morecambe]

Hi the posting you might want to concentrate on is:-

http://www.medhelp.org/posts/show/523166

regards
Morecambe

[CalGal]

Alwaystired, when bile has a chance to 'run' the length of the small and large bowel it slowly turns from yellow to brown, but with the loss of the whole of the colon you're essentially 'fast-forwarding' the contents toward the end. It will not have much of a chance to change color. In addition, since one of the major functions of the large intestine is to re-absorb much of the liquid in the intestinal contents, you're going to put out a LOT of fluid.

You can change the output quite a lot by adding fiber and foods to your diet that will 'bulk up' the material. If you'd like to do that, check out Morecambe's posts. You'll find a lot of good information in them.

[bugsmoom96]

I'm not sure if it is normal or not but your not alone, I had total abdominal colectomy about 2 years ago in January and still have the same problem at times.  This tends to come on more so when everything is going completely out of my system though.

Don't know if your Dr. has checked you for Vit D. deficiency or not but you may ask them about it, with this surgery it is not uncommon.

[alwaystired24]

bump........anyone have any ideas???