Constipation is running my life and I am embarrassed

My experience was very boring, which I offer as data. Some of us just get a dull time of it.

Building on what the opening post wrote rather than answering the original question.

What helped was lowering my own expectations of the week rather than trying to hold the week together.

Coming back to this a fortnight later to say it settled. Leaving the update because I hate reading threads that stop.

I have been in this circle a year and this question comes round every few months. It is not a silly question. It is the question.

Please do not read the comments under news articles about this. I lost a fortnight to that.

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

Two things that helped me, neither of them clever: small amounts more often, and drinking a lot more than felt necessary.

I would take that to a clinician rather than to us, and I would do it this week. Not because it is definitely serious — because it is the sort of thing that is much easier to rule out than to worry about.

Yes. All of this. I had the same in my third month and I remember thinking there was something specifically wrong with me, which there was not.

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

Different experience here, for balance. Mine did not improve and in the end I stopped, and that was the right call for me. Both outcomes exist.

The phrase that unlocked my appointment was asking what specifically she wanted me to watch for. It moved us from reassurance to a plan in about thirty seconds.

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

No advice, just recognition. That sounds exhausting and I am sorry you are in it.

I keep a two-line diary and it is the only reason I could answer this question about myself. Worth starting even now.

My pharmacist was more use than anyone. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge.

It got worse before it got better for me, which I wish someone had said. About ten days of worse.