MED-HIVE SERIES: JUST BEFORE YOU FLUSH THE TOILET, TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE, YOUR POOP MAY TELL YOU SOMETHING

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The Topic may have scared you abit, what is beautiful in your shit, it is probably one of the most disgusting part of you if not the most, and yet people never even give it a look, despite the fact that it just came out of them.
To be honest, with you, I want to convince you to always look at your shit, yeah, your poo whenever you use the look. So if you re eating or in a situation where you dont want to initiate a so to say disgusting thought, kindly stop reading now and plan to come back to continue later. This may save a life, may not be yours but someone you told.

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There many things your poo can show us as medical Doctors, but often times, we are not there when you are doing it, oh no we really dont want to be there, but then you are right there, in the action and controlling the whole event of defecation. So why not know a few of these things and have an answer for us when we ask, "How does your pooh look like?"

Indeed your poo can tell us a lot. Imaging that you have never been on a train ride to say London, anyone who has been there has a lot to say. This is exactly how I see it and how I want you to see it. Your poo has been on a journey and we want to find out how it went.

Another way to see it is this. WHen you want to eat, except for the visually impaired, you want to see the food, the colour, the smell, the texture, the content, the quantity, all of these drives aromatic thoughts to your brain and you begin to salivate and want to start eating it right, right?

What if you look at your shit that way, but this time not because you want to &&%%$%%^ it, but you want to see what you have done, if it is good. You want to see the colour, the smell, the texture, the content, the quantity, all of this suggests a lot in the mind of a good Doctor.

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COLOUR

Lets begin with the Color of your stool

When you stool is reddish, this suggests blood in your stool and hence may imply a lower Intestinal bleeding, especially if the blood is fresh red. People with hemorrhoids, and lesions in the rectum, colon and even anal may have this.
However, if your stool is black or like we say, dark tarry stool. more like the tar on the road, then this is suggestive of an upper GI (Gastro intestinal) Pathology or even a Liver disease causing a bleeding. Its is also of note that some medications can also change the color of your stool, especially iron containing syrups or food. This has been known to give a black stool.

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TEXTURE

That said, let us talk about Texture
The texture of your stool can tell a lot about how much absorption is going on in your intestines. If your intestinal wall has some pathology, or a disease, it will not be able to absorb fluids and even nutrient as efficiently as it should and this may result in watery stool or even slimy stool as it still has some of the things that ought to have been absorbed. Mal-absorption may be a common cause of this, as well as gastroenteritis which is an inflammation of the intestine. In the situation where the stool is harder than usual, this is often noticed while the deed is being done, it could be suggestive of dehydration or ingestion of food devoid of fibres. Where there is an obstruction in the colon there may be some pellet formed stool which suggests that the outlet of the faeces are reduced in there. All of these would require a medical check up as well.

SMELL

The Smell of your stool..😶
I know this is the least part anyone wants to pay attention to but then,, I probably wont too, however lets give it some thought, A foul smelling stool may be common but when it is really foul smelling, it could be suggestive of a liver pathology, the liver is known to produce bile and other important enzymes for breakdown of food and its byproducts, now bile aids this breakdown by emulsifying fat which makes it easier to break down, when there is no bile production or maybe an obstruction what we have is a bulky and foul smelling stool. You may not want to imaging how this will feel

CONTENT

Ofcourse this is the part we get to look at mostly, some people look at it and forget it though, but it is important to know the content of your stool, is it bloody, does it contain mucus, does it contain identifiable food particles?
The content of your stool cool even be a tapeworm if you had one in there especially in tropical regions. In children having diarrhoea, it may be watery, or even mucus. some other microscopic contents like parasites and their eggs have also been recorded
If anyone these are noted, kindly see your Doctor.

QUANTITY

As earlier inferred, if someone is having a large sum of stool, it could be the improper digestion of fat, excess intake or even use of a laxative. The reverse may be what we call constipation when the patient is not producing any feaces at all, this may be a bit off our topic because there is nothing to look at, hehehe, but then there are many causes of constipation as well, hopefully to be covered in another edition of Med Hive series. Summarily, it is mostly a GIGO thing, what you eat is what you give.

In summary, you make it easier for Doctors to driving to making the right diagnosis by being very aware of the face of your stool, this is one of the reasons I dont support latrines where you cant see your poo.

Dr House
I once had a patient who kept on denying that her poo was abnormal, she kept saying there was nothing wrong with it, until we kindly asked her to snap it, it still felt somehow to her, but alas, it was a dark tarry stool, she had been having it for a long time now that she thought it was normal. She had a peptic ulcer disease, one of the upper GI bleeds afore mentioned. I felt like Gregory House for a while.

Even God looked at what he had done and saw that it was good, when you cook, the look of the food can also tell that it was some good cooking, take a look at that poo today and tell me it was beautiful or you may need to see a Dr ASAP.

References
Poop Appearance: What Stool Shape, Size, & Smell Can Tell You

Types of poop: Appearance, color, and what is normal

This is Med-Hive, A series of medical case stories and short explanations on the case, symptoms and slight clinical insight. This does not aim at giving any medical advice as your doctor would do that after proper review involving history taking, physical examination and necessary investigations. However, a healthy society can only thrive with healthy information's like this. I will also love to entertain your questions in the comment section. Thanks for Reading

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