One of the joys of post-polio syndrome is hung chow. That's Chinese for constipation. And in my case, it's caused, my quack tells me, by "low intestinal motility." Which is to say the peristaltic muscles have been weakened and they don't move "matter" (he puts it politely) along as fast as they should. Said "matter" tends to get dry and hard as it lays their in the colon, because that's one of the functions of the colon:   to remove some of the moisture from the "matter."

Without some sort of assistance, a session on the potty can last for hours. Apparently this is pretty common among post-polios and folks with spinal chord injuries.

I was given a bunch of free samples of Miralax. But I'm one of those patients who drive doctors nuts-o. I checked the internet for such things as side-effects and "what is this stuff, really?" Miralax came up sounding like a product from the House of the Borgias—as Rapaire points out, "anti-freeze! No wonder the stuff works. Since it's poisonous, the body wants to get rid of it as quickly as possible!

In one internet forum on the stuff, a woman described how she was preparing for her big church wedding, and being pretty nervous and up-tight, she had become badly constipated. She took some Miralax. It worked. Boy, did it work! It converted her constipation to explosive diarrhea. Like the Energizer bunny, she kept going and going and going. . . .    Then, on her wedding day, feeling that she had to be totally emptied out, as she, lavishly kitted out in her wedding dress, with a couple of hundred guests in the church, was walking down the aisle on the arm of her father toward the altar and her husband-to-be—    Ka-BOOM!! She took an unpredictable and totally uncontrollable dump!!

Needless to say. . . .

So I tossed the free sample packets of Miralax into a drawer in my bathroom and opted for good old reliable Milk of Magnesia. A couple of times a week, three tablespoons of M. of M. in the morning and about three or four hours later, we have liftoff!

It solves the constipation problem (oh, boy, does it!) and it makes the whole thing relatively predicable, which is a big bonus.

I hope this helps.

Don Firth

P. S. Here you go:    CLICKY

P. P. S.   For possible future reference:

A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by his patients (predominately male) while he was performing their colonoscopies:

1. 'Take it easy, Doc. You're boldly going where no man has gone before!
2. 'Find Amelia Earhart yet?'
3. 'Can you hear me NOW?'
4. 'Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?'
5. 'You know, in Arkansas, we're now legally married.'
6. 'Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?'
7. 'You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out...'
8. 'Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!'
9. 'If your hand doesn't fit, you must quit!
10. 'Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.'
11. 'You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?'
12. 'God, now I know why I am not gay.'

And the best one of all....

13. 'Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there?'

P. P. P. S.   Barbara and I were having some Chinese takeout with Bob and Judy. When we got to the obligatory fortune cookie, Judy opened hers, read the fortune, and burst out laughing.

"It says 'You have an inner beauty.' That's what they told me after my colonoscopy!"