An adult perspective here...FYI this might be TMI for some.
Brutal honesty here
I take 3 Ultrase MT20 with meals and 1-3 with snacks depending on fat content. I taken this strength and quanittiy (not necessarily brand) since I was a pre-teen.
I don't worry about color or consistancy generally but rather frequency. If I'm going more than 2 times a day I start to monitor and if it doesn't fix itself after a couple days I would call cf doc/dietician and see what they say. Since I have had little problem with this area of my health I don't know much about it. I just take my enzymes and everything stays happy down there.
I will say when I was a teen I tried to not take my enzymes to see if I would lose weight. It didn't work all I got was very achy pooing experiences. For me it's not tummyaches throughout the day it's when I poop (which can be every hour or so) it feels like I'm not done. Like I need to keep pushing to make the pain go away.
Like I said I don't pay much attention to consistancy except these two things...
1) If my poop is dark and hard I know I need to be drinking more water. Often when it gets like this it also gets pebble like.
2) My poop sinks showing I don't have a lot of oil in it. If it floats I take note and if it carried on for very long I would call dr. Usually it means I took my enzymes well after the meal was done. Oops!
3) Finally I notice when my poop is totally loose - I'm not talking little snakes here (that would fall w/i the normal range for me) I'm talking liquid butt or a pile of sunken gravy more like it. For me this usually is because I am on antibiotics and I need to up my probiotics or it's just the nature of the beast such as with Cipro which speeds up the motility of your gut so you don't remove the liquid as well.
Since being on probiotics 2-3x per day for a few years now I don't get diahrea unless I am on abx. If I had it at another time I would seriously suspect c-diff as much as I take abx. I am scared of c-diff and avoid in-patient hosptializations for this reason.
I'm wondering why so many of your kids take such a large number of pills. Why don't the dr's move them up to a higher strength so they can take less pills? I believe this is important because, espeically in small children, space in the stomach is a precious commodity. Fill it with pills or food? Are they taking the pills before they eat or after?
I always have taken my pills right after the meal due to dr's having this philosophy. They wanted me to fill myself with food as much as possible then take the pills too. It works for me.
Brutal honesty here
I take 3 Ultrase MT20 with meals and 1-3 with snacks depending on fat content. I taken this strength and quanittiy (not necessarily brand) since I was a pre-teen.
I don't worry about color or consistancy generally but rather frequency. If I'm going more than 2 times a day I start to monitor and if it doesn't fix itself after a couple days I would call cf doc/dietician and see what they say. Since I have had little problem with this area of my health I don't know much about it. I just take my enzymes and everything stays happy down there.
I will say when I was a teen I tried to not take my enzymes to see if I would lose weight. It didn't work all I got was very achy pooing experiences. For me it's not tummyaches throughout the day it's when I poop (which can be every hour or so) it feels like I'm not done. Like I need to keep pushing to make the pain go away.
Like I said I don't pay much attention to consistancy except these two things...
1) If my poop is dark and hard I know I need to be drinking more water. Often when it gets like this it also gets pebble like.
2) My poop sinks showing I don't have a lot of oil in it. If it floats I take note and if it carried on for very long I would call dr. Usually it means I took my enzymes well after the meal was done. Oops!
3) Finally I notice when my poop is totally loose - I'm not talking little snakes here (that would fall w/i the normal range for me) I'm talking liquid butt or a pile of sunken gravy more like it. For me this usually is because I am on antibiotics and I need to up my probiotics or it's just the nature of the beast such as with Cipro which speeds up the motility of your gut so you don't remove the liquid as well.
Since being on probiotics 2-3x per day for a few years now I don't get diahrea unless I am on abx. If I had it at another time I would seriously suspect c-diff as much as I take abx. I am scared of c-diff and avoid in-patient hosptializations for this reason.
I'm wondering why so many of your kids take such a large number of pills. Why don't the dr's move them up to a higher strength so they can take less pills? I believe this is important because, espeically in small children, space in the stomach is a precious commodity. Fill it with pills or food? Are they taking the pills before they eat or after?
I always have taken my pills right after the meal due to dr's having this philosophy. They wanted me to fill myself with food as much as possible then take the pills too. It works for me.