If you’ve got it, you’ll know. Believe me, you’ll know, even if you don’t know what it is called. And if you’re here looking for help with this symptom – welcome!
Anyone reading this over their breakfast, look away now. Better, come back later, when you’ve finished.
You may remember that some time ago I posted a picture of the Bristol stool chart. (This is in fact one of the most popular pages of this site.) I was impressed when the doctor pulled this chart out, so that I could point to the product most like that of my one-year-old daughter, before she was diagnosed. OK, I can’t resist it … here’s the image again.
But I do remember thinking at the time, that what he also needed was the equivalent of a paint chart. When I was asked what colour were her stools, I resorted to looking around the room to find something that was the approximate colour. Turned out to be the fireplace. Look at the left hand end of this bar of colour …
Yes – very pale, and very distinctive! But I think there’s probably a range – I’ve seen stools anywhere along this range of colours before diagnosis. After diagnosis, then the colour range has been much closer to that of the Bristol stool chart.
So what was it?
This is steatorrhoea, which is an excess of fat in faeces.
The stool may float due to trapped air. It is also pale in colour (see my paint chart!), and there may be drops of oil visible in the toilet pan after flushing.
The reference documents say it may be foul-smelling. In my experience it has an extremely strong, very distinctive and vile smell. ‘Foul-smelling’ is a very mild description …
Steatorrhoea is a classic symptom of coeliac disease. It’s not the only one, and you can have coeliac disease without this symptom, but if you have it, you should get checked out by a doctor.
Apparently, in coeliac disease the level of fat excreted is usually between 25 and 30 g per day. In case you were wondering, the normal level is about 9 g per day. And checking the level of fat in the stool is, indeed, one of the screening tests that can be run.
We dutifully collected a stool sample to be sent off to the lab all those years ago, but it must have been quite obvious from the moment I pointed at the very pale beige of the fireplace, that something wasn’t right.
OK, you can go back to your breakfast now …
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Yes, I have this, constantly, and am recently diagnosed with coeliac disease. I have been on the gluten-free diet for a month, but I am still losing weight at about 3lb a week. How long does it take to turn this round?
Hi Hedley
I’m sorry to hear you’re still having problems. I believe it takes longer for adults to recover than for children, and that it can take some months for adults…
But 3lb weightloss a week – as unintentional weightloss, rather than as a weight-reduction plan – doesn’t sound right to me. I’m not a doctor, but I think you should go back to your medical team and tell them about this.
Are you absolutely sure that you’ve removed all traces of gluten from your diet? There is hidden gluten in all sorts of unexpected places, including drinks vending machines, baking powders, stocks and gravy, soups, a lot of sweets – and even, I saw the other day, in a ‘lite’ cream cheese. And then there’s the risk of shared pots of butter or jam…
The other question that comes to mind is to ask whether you might also be lactose intolerant. Coeliac disease damages the villi in your small intestine, and I believe a knockon effect of this is to damage the ability to digest lactose (found in milk). This is a temporary effect, usually, as when the villi regrow, this ability returns.
But do go and ask your doctor for advice on this. Best of luck – do come back and tell us how you got on.
4 months now, and the weight loss has stabilised, but constant diarrhoea continues. Gastroscopy shceduled for next week, we’ll see what’s going on perhaps. I look like a walking skeleton. very weak a lot of the time, and ribs ache just with carrying my weight lying down or sitting.
Hedley, I’m so sorry to hear you’re not any better, though it’s good that the weightloss has stabilised. Good luck with the gastroscopy next week – I do hope they find out what the problem is!
A friend of mine sufferin from loose stool for more then 14 days. At first we thought its chronic diarrhoea, he took ciprofloxacin which didnt work. I should admit, 2 month earlier he was diagnosed of havin fatty liver. Can it be steatorrhoea? What should we do?