Poor bowel function after a low anterior resection..

Hello VJS1985

Thanks for getting in touch with us. My name is  Tricia and I’m one of the Cancer Information Nurses on the Macmillan Support Line.

I hope your treatment for rectal cancer went well and I imagine you are now on follow up. I am sorry to hear that you are having problems with your bowel function after surgery.

The rectum acts as a storage for our faeces (poo) so surgery for rectal cancer (often anterior resection) can reduce the capacity of this storage. This can lead to problems initially after surgery but also can be a more long-term problem depending on how much rectum was removed. It sounds like your consultant was expecting that your surgery would have an impact on your bowel function. Even though it is an expected outcome, it can be still difficult to try to manage and adjust to this new bowel function.

The important thing is to know you are not alone and there are ways to try and manage this. There is something that is called  Low Anterior Resection Syndrome (LARS). This can cause symptoms such as frequency of opening bowels, urgency, having a sensation to want to open bowels again even after passing faeces, passing fragmented stool more often and wind. This can become bothersome and affect your daily living. Although we can’t diagnose on this platform it may be something you could discuss with your Nurse specialist or Consultant.

There are ways to try and manage this change in bowel control after treatment with trying to managing your bowel function  initially with diet, medications, pelvic floor exercises toileting habits and exercise.  Medications can be considered such as fybogel for bulking the stool if having frequent or fragmented stools or Imodium for frequent watery stool to see if any improvement to your  bowel problems after treatment.

If there isn’t any improvement with your bowels with time, there may be more specialist treatments available and you could ask to be referred to a  Bladder & Bowel UK team who can see what other help may be available and suitable for you.

Bowel problems post rectal cancer treatment can affect you emotionally as well as physically while you are learning to live with this change in bowels. It may be helpful to talk to other people who are also living with similar problems and there is a Bowel Cancer UK LARS forum and Macmillan Living well with a stoma reversal or LARS forum. There is also  Living With Low Anterior Resection Syndrome Support available.

Hopefully you will have some improvement and your bowel function will settle down into a better pattern. It can be a matter of finding what is your ‘new normal bowel function’ and it is important to remember to let your team know if there are any changes to your bowel function or any other symptoms or concerns during your follow up so they can provide reassurance or any additional investigations to your follow up.  It is important that you can feel you are  living well  after your cancer treatment.

I hope this is helpful. Please don’t hesitate to get back in touch at any time.

Sending best wishes,

Tricia
Macmillan Cancer Information Nurse Specialist

You can also speak with the Macmillan Support Line team of experts. Phone free on 0808 808 0000 (7 days a week, 8am-8pm) or send us an email. 

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