I have been meaning to express my 2 cents worth on this topic for a long time but simply did not get around to it yet...
Further to my other posts about my health status / personal j-pouch story, I felt it necessary to add this post. It's been 17.5 years since my 1-step j-pouch surgery. The one piece of equipment that I simply could not live without is some form of a bidet. By that I am referring to our electric toilet seat bidets that we connected to our toilets by replacing the standard seats and water connections. It also refers to the hand-held bidets I use when traveling.
I am posting because I would like to know if I am in a small or large percentage of j-pouchers who absolutely NEED to clean themselves with warm water rather than toilet paper for a majority their many daily bowel movements. As long as I am able to use water for a good number of my daily BMs I feel okay. However - and it has happened before - going away for a couple of days and forgetting to take my hand-held bidet with me makes for a very long couple of days!
Eating my own delicious home-made chili for dinner tonight... The result: let's just say that I paid the price pretty badly. Was it worth it? At the time - yes! After the fact - maybe a bowl of oatmeal would have felt a lot better for myself. At any rate, after eating to satiety, the result was about 5-6 BMs before I went to bed and another couple after that. Had I not used water to clean myself after most or all of them, I would be in BIG trouble. The big meal ended up going through my system quickly and as I lie in bed a few hours later, after getting up to have yet another BM and now unable to sleep, I feel very empty and hungry as a result. Amazing how fast a large meal can exit my body!
Not trying to be funny, believe me. I am certain that without using some form of bidet, I would be in agony. With a bidet, my anus can handle the traffic often with no problem. I am not confident that remicade or Entyvio would help. I know that had I taken even more codeine prior to my large chili dinner, I would not have had as many trips nor feel as empty as I now do (although I would not do that with my codeine dosage for that purpose).
Do you use bidets - and if so - how big a part of your life are they?