Loose stools after every meal

[Hope1972]

Hi all im after a bit of advice my dad is just over 2 weeks post op and as i explained in my other posts my dad has a chyle leak and therefore he need a liquid fat free diet. Hes allowed things like soup , jelly and weetabix. He also has the jeg over night.

He is not sleeping because of the pain in the drain site and is up all night going for a wee 5-6 times per night. He is currently on zopliclone for his sleeping but this no longer works.

He is getting very very weak and is sleeping during the day.

Im worried my dad is becoming malnourished due to loose stools and lack of protien ect in his diet. He is a stickler for doing everything the hospital has told him to eat.. i advised him to drink an isotonic and add some chicken in his soup and blend it but he keep saying well no dont think im allowed.

Any advice please ? My dad was doing so well but he looks dreadful now.

[kiddy]

Hi the feed also gave me loose stools. Maybe he needs a different feed. The feed should have a good balance of all nutrients. Phone the dietician at the hospital and tell them. Also the milk you use for the weetabix may be a problem , I wasn't able to have full fat like they wanted and cant eat yoguart ice cream etc.

It is early days, things will improve but make sure the hospital know.

Good Luck

Debbie

[champagnelover]

I agree with other reply - your dad needs to speak to a dietician or does he have access to a specialist nurse. He may take more notice of them. He doesn't need to suffer - it's often trial and error I found as many others say on here. Good luck it will get better!

[Hidden]

Is he still in the hospital?

Nutrition-wise he should be OK with soup, and the nutrition drinks should supply the basic nutrition. I suspect that it is the liquid texture and keeping things fat-free that is important for him at this stage.

Sleeping is not necessarily a bad thing as the body wants to recover naturally from all the energy taken up in healing itself. He might just be looking very drawn because of the weight loss which is not necessarily a sign of deteriorating health, but physical weakness might be more of an issue.

Getting up in the night is a real drain on energy but sometimes it is chicken-and-egg that one wants to go because one is awake, but can't get to sleep because of wanting to go to the loo.

There are medications that can help if it is diarrhoea, but one does want to get constipated either.

It is quite an unusual combination of conditions and asking for more specialist dietary advice seems eminently justified.

[Shandy23]

2 weeks post op is still not very long for your system to get back into some sort of normality. I had a post op leak and was'nt able to eat anything at all for 7-8 weeks and had a Jeg in overnight for about 3 months I was given sachets of Prosource to add to it by the dietican, they might be worth asking about as they are a direct source of 100% protein which helped with all my healing. I too had loose stools for most of my 8 week stay in hospital I was tired and drained but it did'nt do me any harm as I was getting enough nutrients through my feed.

Good luck hope everything works out.

[Hope1972]

Hi all thankyou for all of your advice. I called my dads dietician and she advised dad to start on a low fat soft diet today. Dad had cornflakes this am instead of weetabix as even me as a healthy person cant eat that without dashing to the loo (too much fiber, lol )

Anyway dad has gone for an outpatient xray to see how the leak is healing , fingers crossed. My mam will make him some mash , mince and gravy tonight ( without butter and milk of course) ive also called his GP and they have px him temazapam for his disturbed sleep. Fingers crossed x