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Elderly man won't take the CosmoCol and constipation getting worse.

Posted , 3 users are following.

Krug22
Krug22

I am my 77 year old husbands carer.Despite advice from a dietican, my husband is living off Fortisips. This has made him very consitpated. We went to to see the GP because husband was in a lot of pain and severe constipation was diagnosed. Husband is supposed to take 8 sachets a day initially to get things moving but he just won't. Tried prompting and making them up for him. Basically GP explained Lactulose won't work now - he also mentioned that an enema in hospital might be necessary. I am very worried because he mentioned surgery - a part of the bowel being removed, if we did not deal with it. Husbands breath smells dreadfully and he is complaining  a nasty taste in his mouth. He last went to the loo Friday morning. Very worried he may have some kind of blockage. I wonder if anyone here has suffered this and what the symptons were? I cannot physically make him take the sachets. I wonder when this situation is likely to become dangerous, if it is not already? Husband has 'mental capacity' so am going to struggle to get GP to talk to me about this but it is becoming a huge worry and I am starting to wonder if husband does actually have 'mental capacity'. I cannot fault the GP - he did explain how the sachets worked and said that once things got back to normal then husband could reduce sachets to 2 a day. He felt husband having the nutrisips was appaling but the fact is that his weight is around 9st - before he had them, his weight was under 8st. I just cannot get him to eat normal food and although I tried to implement dieticians suggestions, I ended up binning the grapes, prunes, raisons time and time again. Thanks for reading and wonder if anyone else has experienced something similar iwth the elderly? 

0 likes, 3 replies

3 Replies

  • LaurenJCh
    LaurenJCh Krug22

    Posted

    Sorry to hear you are struggling with your husband. I can talk from previous experience from working in a nursing home and having some understanding of how the body works. Firstly, if he does not want to help himself, it's clear that he is not happy right now. You can't force him to do anything. Has he totally gone off his favourite foods? 

    If he is in pain, something is obviously wrong, and things should get looked at. I've had previous experience of a resident eating about a mouthful of toast a day, being constipated, the bad breath and in pain. After about 3 weeks of being like this, one day she was vomiting faeces, and rushed straight to hospital. This can be quite common from what I have experienced.

    An enema is a good place to start, as this will tell you if he can be cleared out a bit. 

    Good luck, hope this info helps !

  • g.90572
    g.90572 Krug22

    Posted

    You can buy drink supplements with fiber included that might help with constipation
    • Krug22
      Krug22 g.90572

      Posted

      Thanks for your replies- dietician has already put him on the Nutrison Multi Fibre. He should have 2 a day but he often buys more on ebay and can be having 4 even 6 a day. We did eat out over the Xmas period but even then he would not finish his steak - cats dined on fillet steak on Xmas Eve and my Birthday! Frankly I think it is a vicious circle - he has a nasty taste in his mouth so loses his appetite, and/or he is in pain and does not want to eat. He has had one orange sachet so far today.......so no way is he going to make the 8.Doubt verymuch if he will get to 2!  
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