Bristol Stool Form Scale - Poop!

[nvsmom]

This topic is all about bowel movements so be forewarned...

 

There's been a few posts about abnormal BMs lately, and it got me thinking about what a normal poop actually is, and how to recognize it when we have nothing to compare to except ourselves. 

 

I experienced C my entire life but I didn't realize how extreme it was because it was an everyday thing for me.  Afetr being gluten-free for 9 months, and getting proper thyroid treatment for hypothyroidism (which causes C too), I finally had normal BMs for the first time in my life yet I thought I had D.  Going Having a BM more than once a day and actually really needing toilet paper was new to me, and it took me a while to realize I was finally normal.

 

I recently found the Bristol Stool Form Scale, which shows what actually IS a normal BM, in slightly gross detail.  Here is a link to the chart: Open Original Shared Link

 

It's sort of interesting to see where one falls on the scale... in a icky way that I would never admit to checking beyond our little virtual world.  LOL

How do you compare?

[icelandgirl]

Lol Nicole! I guess I'm largely normal now. Go me! Before seeing this I would have called 6 a D...and now I feel even more normal.

[caro7]

Interesting!  I did read the article following about fiber.  I just figured out I am consuming too much fiber.  Very good read, thank you for posting it.

[nvsmom]

LOL I was a 2 and sometimes a 1 or 3.  I had no clue at all that it wasn't the norm. 

[LauraTX]

This is actually a really good visual to post for people who deal with GI irregularity.  They use a similar scale in medical settings.  Funny story, when I was working in a hospital pharmacy, one of the drug reps had dropped off poo scale posters.  Someone taped it to our main workflow bulletin board.  On the last, most loose one, I wrote "too much taco bell" and then through the evening others wrote more on it.  At midnight the head pharmacist at night came in and was very upset that we had done that... LOL.  But everyone else was snickering for days.