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  • You can probably narrow down what is causing it, assuming it's dietary which I will assume, by doing the most basic things. Eat the same meals everyday and see if your shit quality improves. If you're nearly shitting yourself, your shits are probably liquid or near liquid. You want those to be solid but soft.

    Other people have already recommended it, but if you eat meat (I dunno what alternatives are, but there surely are some) you can eat like grilled or however you like it chicken, broccoli, and rice every day for a meal. Maybe two if you can tolerate it. Those three things are incredibly easy to "meal prep" aka "cooking" (not sure why people always have terms for stuff, but whatever). I cook myself like 5 days or so worth of all of them at a time and store them sealed in the fridge. Throw some seasoning on after nuking meals in the microwave... tastes fine.

    That's the meal vets prescribe to dogs when they keep shitting themselves. So if you can stand to eat that and another meal (I usually eat eggs, rice, small amount of bacon so I can get tasty fats in my body as my other meal. Low fat diets make me go insane). And maybe a third meal depending how you want to live (I eat plain "old fashioned" oatmeal with a spoonful of peanut butter (yeah, the type with salt and sugar, sue me health people) and a banana sliced up in it for breakfast basically everyday) You'll soon discover if it's your diet or maybe something else.

    You should also go to a doctor of course if you can afford it and it's an option. But if your diet is dogshit, packed with excessively spicy (as in hot not flavorful), sugary, or fatty foods, the doc is 100% of the time going to say "clean up your diet. Eat more fiber. Report back in [whatever time period]." Unless you have painful stomach issues or other kinds of cramps, pain, vomiting, etc. they are unlikely to dig much further than typical check up stuff and telling you to fix your diet since that's the cause of most people's stomach issues or bowel movement inconsistency.

    Not directed at you, but I think a lot of people underestimate the simple logic of "thing goes in... things comes out" with food and taking shits. If someone eats a bunch of spicy hot wings, most of us expect to have a rough shit I think. By the same logic, if you eat a bunch of fatty foods like, I dunno, a lot of bacon or a whole bag of greasy chips, you should expect the resulting shit to be composed of a bunch of excess oils since that's what you put in. Your body doesn't need and can't process a whole bag of lard or vegetable oil or whatever your chips are cooked in... so it blasts it out your ass in the form of little chunks of shit floating in digested lipids. That's the exact recipe for your ass leaking. It's internally lubed with bacon grease and chip grease... think about it

    (I know some of this is humorous in nature, but it can't be helped with poop discussions)

  • Telling an "I shit my pants" story is weirdly endearing to me. It's showing vulnerability about something that everyone has done.

    We shouldn't feel shame about a bodily function we have no control over anyway.

  • Anyone telling you this has never happened to them at least just a little and not catastrophically is fuckin lying.

    That said it is overwhelmingly likely related to diet.

  • Suddenly having fecal incontinence could be an indicator of a serious physical issue. I see in other comments you are planning to get real medical advice and encourage you to follow through on that. It is a vague symptom like coughing: could be a cold, asthma flare up, chemical exposure, medication side effect, TB, traumatic injury, congenital disorder... Without knowing anything else about you it's impossible to guess at the cause let alone the solution as various people seem to be doing.

    More common with aging but not a normal/expected part of getting older. People accrue problems as they age but those problems have reasons.

    You dont need to rush to the ER today but should probably organize assessment in the next month or 2. You aren't dying more than anyone else.

  • This post makes me feel seen. This is for the people with similar GI issues to me:

    Psyllium powder: Multiple of my medicines made my GI tract so slow, it caused constipation that's sent me to urgent care multiple times. My body had no motility to push my poop through and out my intestines. It sat there, and no matter how much psyllium powder I took, it wouldn't budge. I drank so much water I sometimes couldn't stand. It was acute water poisoning. My brain was swollen constantly from over hydration and I constantly had migraines. I barely took breaths between chugs of water all day, and I barely passed stool.

    Here's what has and hasn't worked for me.

    Psyllium, Lactulose: Was still drinking brain swelling amounts of water. Psyllium did some work. Lactulose moved my bowels, but was majorly unhelpful in many ways. It's a sugary syrup that my current GI doctor told me never works well for anyone. It made me get tons of gas that smelled so bad, everything and everywhere in the house stank. It was worst when I ate tuna. I halted having guests over for months... Then I got my first GI doctor. After my GI doctor put me on better meds(in following paragraphs) I stopped taking Lactulose and had to wash my clothes and bedding with cups of baking soda in the laundry. I don't think the stink would've come out otherwise.

    Psyllium, Miralax, Amitiza: I was told by a GI doctor to use psyllium husk powder and Miralax together, everyday. And also a laxative prescription Amitiza. It gave me migraines, but at least my bowels moved. That's 3 total GI meds.

    Psyllium, Miralax, Linzess, Motegrity: The Amitiza at the highest dose stopped working on its own. A stronger one was assigned called Linzess. Later Linzess also stopped being enough, but it was continued. Motegrity was added. That's 4 total GI meds.

    Linzess, Motegrity, Citrucel: When I asked how I could minimize the amounts of things I take, they said to stay on the prescription laxative. But stop the psyllium husk fiber and Miralax, and replace them with Citrucel. Citrucel is sugar from citrus fruits which has a laxative effect, and it's a fiber supplement. That's 3 total GI meds.

    The constipating medicine dose got lowered, I gained some motility, and have shit my pants times than I can count. I've changed my daily Citrucel amount many times. Too much= diarrhea from too much laxative. Too little= diarrhea from too little fiber. A bit too little= semi constipation. A bit too much = wishing you took a bit too little instead.

    As someone else said, you shouldn't be ashamed of a bodily function you can't control. No one should stop themselves from getting help for this stuff. Now I'm so satisfied when my poops come out healthy. I came a long way!

  • If you suspect at all that you aren't eating enough fiber I would at the very least try out some fiber supplement. Target sells some generic kind for an ok price, it's basically just psyllium husk with a bit of orange flavoring (you mix the stuff up fast and shoot it down, else it gels up). If you get too many runny poops it's usually a lack of fiber, and at least in the immediate term supplementing can help (or when you just haven't got much fiber in you in the last 48 hours).

  • This happened to me once (or one particularly (ie first)) upsetting time. I was in my early 20s.

    I am now approximately 15-20 years older and I've only recently learned to trust my farts again. So far it's been at least 3 months of ripping and giggling again without fear of shame. I still keep it to an at home activity because I really don't know if my butt will betray me again but if it does it will almost certainly be in public at the most humiliating possible time and place.

    All of this is to say, no it probably isn't JUST a getting old thing. I would suggest it's most likely dietary and that your poops aren't efficient. Still, Dr Hexbear is not a real doctor and you should get some professional advice.

    I have noticed from listening to Manly Men Talking On The Internet (YouTube and podcasts) that (and I swear I've only seen American dudes talk about this like it's a normal and common occurrence) that an INSANE number of adult American men in their 30s regularly shit their pants and joke about it together later like it's normal.

    Could be that they're all alcoholic binge drinkers but I'm not sure I've really noticed a strong correlation between shart stories and drinking stories.

    I'm thinking it's usually dietary. But maybe there's more going on here.

    • I'm thinking it's usually dietary. But maybe there's more going on here.

      I hope it's my diet. I don't drink anymore and afaik my liver is fine. My mom passed away due to her liver and drinking and she would regularly have accidents before she died. Any case I should get myself checked out.

  • If you're able to talk to a doc about it you should ask how you can improve your diet

    Are you drinking a lot of coffee or something?

    • Are you drinking a lot of coffee or something?

      Could very well be that, I'm up to 6 cups a day so there's probably a connection.

      • Oh definitely, that amount of coffee will deliver you the shits.

        Try to cut down. Again if you have the means to see a doctor about it I would just to get advice to handle coffee withdrawals once you cut down.

        I would say start by cutting down to 4 standard cups a day because that at least gets you below the unhealthy limit.

        -signed, a caffeine addict

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