stillinger
05-10-2002, 12:17 PM
Has anyone with a spinal cord injury (SCI) experienced this problem (I am a paraplegic in a wheelchair): despite fairly regular BM's (induced, for me, by suppository) I have a continuous (all day), overwhelming urge to defecate, without any apparent immediate pressure from stool; it is mild only in the morning before bowel progam, intensifying immediately thereafter for the rest of the day and persisting through the time I go to bed (i.e., lie down) until I fall asleep, although being in a supine (as opposed to sitting) position alleviates it. It has resulted in essentially no bowel accidents by day or night; thus (and for other reasons) my doctors tend to believe it is a neuropathic (or neurogenic) pain, although it is unrelieved by neuronton (or any other approach, including acupuncture). Important addition: I have a baclofen pump in my abdomen, installed a little crooked (although doctors don't believe that that is harmful or relevant). I've had the pump and the bowel problem, although the first signs of the latter appeared before the pump, for about 2 years. The problem just keeps getting worse, to the point where it's driving me up the wall.