Stretching to find a theme that fits

Each arti­cle that I cre­ate has a theme. At times, it is just a nutri­tion fact and the com­pli­cated details to sub­stan­ti­ate the infor­ma­tion. Yet some arti­cles are just a story that I have to stretch to find a way to weave a nutri­tion fact.

This week’s entry has an uncom­fort­able theme. I have tried to tie it into the com­mem­o­ra­tion of a spe­cial month. April is National Autism Month, Inter­na­tional Gui­tar Month and National Frog Month. Sorry, but it doesn’t fit with those wor­thy subjects.

National Child Abuse Pre­ven­tion Month nor Parkinson’s Aware­ness Month really do not relate to my theme, nei­ther do National Vol­un­teer Month or Poetry Month. The topic that I want to expand upon has noth­ing to do with National Humor Month but it could if you were in the third or fourth grade, then it would be a laugh­ing matter.

There will be no more pro­cras­ti­nat­ing or avoid­ing this del­i­cate sub­ject. My words this week are about fecal matter.

Feces are the result of the food that the body con­sumes and the waste mat­ter elim­i­nated from the bow­els. Excre­ment is a very per­sonal topic, but every­one does it. I doubt that there is a month related to this sub­ject. I could not find a national poop month on the cal­en­dar. From here on, I’ll call it stool.

Since there is not a spe­cific hol­i­day related to this sen­si­tive sub­ject, let me just con­tinue with the details. Last week, I received a call from a reader ask­ing about the color of stool.

She was con­cerned about the shade of yellow-green. I replied that the color can vary from day to day. Dif­fer­ent shades of brown are nor­mal. A dis­color rarely is a sign of a poten­tially seri­ous intesti­nal problem.

The color is gen­er­ally a result of what is con­sumed and the amount of bile, which is a yellow-green fluid that digests fats in the body. As the mix­ture trav­els the gas­troin­testi­nal tract, enzymes turn every­thing brown. I told her that if this only hap­pened once, no con­cern was necessary.

If the stool had been bright red or black, call the doc­tor because it may indi­cate the pres­ence of blood and a poten­tially seri­ous con­di­tion. Then she men­tioned that some­times her stool is red.

I did some inves­ti­ga­tion and learned that red vel­vet cake, beets, red dye #40, red Kool-Aid, red or pur­ple Gatorade and even red pep­pers or toma­toes can occa­sion­ally make stool red. It doesn’t take much to change the color of stool to red.

If the dis­col­or­ing occurs within 16 hours of eat­ing some­thing red, and it does not resolve within a few bowel move­ments, call the doc­tor. It could indi­cate bleed­ing and there would be a lot of discomfort.

Through my research I did learn that this com­ing week is National Scoop the Poop Week for pet own­ers. It is a stretch, but it does sort of fit with this theme.

Bob­bie Ran­dall is a cer­ti­fied dia­betes edu­ca­tor, reg­is­tered, licensed dietit­ian. She super­vises a dia­betes self-management train­ing pro­gram at Aultman-Orrville Hos­pi­tal, Orrville. Con­tact her at bobbie.randall@aultmanorrville.org or 330–684‑4776.

Posted by Bobbie Randall on Apr 25 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.