Clear stools?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

There is a lady in our LTC who has recently had a stroke. When we take care of her and roll her over to clean her up, there is like a clear gel looking substance in her brief.

Could it be clear stool? I've never heard of such a thing, and I don't remember anything like this in nursing school.:confused:

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I know what you're talking about, but I don't know what it is.

Brett

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Specializes in Geriatrics/Oncology/Psych/College Health.

Do you mean a small amount of mucus? Or are we talking volume? There are many things that can cause mucus in the stool, some benign, others bad.

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I've seen it before too, in small amounts. Always figured it was mucus.

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I had a CABG pt once who had this very same thing. His stool was completely clear and slightly gelatinous. It had volume as well, I'd say apprx 500cc a few times a day. We sent a sample down to the lab for C&S, O&P, etc. The lab called us back and told us the requisition had said stool, but we had sent something else. I have only seen it once in 11 years. We did some research, but couldn't find out what was causing it. Unfortunately, I was working as a critical care float at the time and never had the opportunity to follow up and see what this was. Let me know if you do.

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We had a woman who had the same thing and she had a bowel obstruction. It is a mucous, but it's also an infection

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See it all the time. Especially with a double barrel colostomy. They even call the distal end of the colostomy a mucous fistula. Even in these patients it is still passed from the rectum. I have seen huge quantities of mucous passed. Someone here mentioned infection. I am not discounting that but in the cases I've seen it there was no infection.

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Specializes in inpatient hospice house.

Mucus is seen in the stool also when the intestines are inflammed, ulcerated or engorged. Possible dx chrohns diseas, ulcerative colitis or one in the same inflammatory bowel disease.

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See that with bowel obstructions, the only thing that forms to pass below the obstruction is clear mucus.

disclaimer

Only experience here no real way to back this up:confused:

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I've worked with mucous fistulas before, and what this guy was passing was something completely different. It was only very slightly mucousy, for the most part, it looked like water.

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No...this stuff is totally clear (no color at all) and looks almost like jelly. There is a fair amount each time. She has no colostomy either...

I'll keep searching and if I can find out anything, I'll let you all know.

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Ok, I really debated with myself if I should post this because I don't want to sound really dumb, but maybe what you are seeing is part of the brief.....

When my son was small there were no such things as pull-ups (training pants) so whenever we took him swimming we would put a diaper on him...we bought the cheap kind and sure enough as soon as it was wet this "white jelly-like substance" would ooze out of it.

Maybe if you wet a brief, let it sit for about 20 minutes and then open up the lining you will find the same type of substance inside.?????:confused:

Gator

Oh how I wish I could have changes my user name for this one!

:rolleyes:

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