Constipation - What is normal bowel habit?
Many people think that if they do not empty their bowels every day, poisons will build up in the body and cause illness. This is not the case. Bowel habits vary greatly from person to person. Although many people have one bowel movement a day, it is not abnormal to have three or four movements per day or one movement every three or four days providing this is your usual pattern of bowel activity. However, a change in bowel habit say from once a day to once every three days or from once a day to four times a day may indicate that something is wrong and you should discuss it with your doctor. Likewise, if you have abdominal pain or bleeding from the back passage you should see your doctor. Don’t put off seeing your doctor because you are afraid of cancer – there are other causes for these symptoms.
More than one in every ten adults consider he/she suffers from constipation and takes laxatives frequently.
What is constipation?
Most people consider constipation to mean a reduction in the frequency of bowel movements. To some extent this is correct but medically we also consider constipation to occur when the stools are hard and difficult to pass. Stools get hard when they stay too long in the bowel because water is extracted from them, the water being absorbed back in to the body through the bowel wall.
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