Symptoms · After bowel surgery
Frequent stools, urgency or leakage after bowel surgery
The short answer
Frequent stools, sudden urgency, repeated small motions or leakage are common after surgery on the lower rectum, or after a stoma is closed, because the bowel and the muscles are learning to work again. This is often called low anterior resection syndrome. It usually improves over weeks to months, and treatment helps. Tell your team early. Go to the emergency room for severe belly pain, fever, or no stool with a swollen belly.
How patients describe it
- I cannot hold my stool
- I rush to the toilet many times a day
- Small leaks of stool or wind
- I feel I cannot empty my bowel
- Soreness around the back passage
Go to the emergency room now if you have
- Severe belly pain
- Fever
- No stool or wind with a swollen belly, or repeated vomiting
- Heavy bleeding from the back passage
- Dizziness or very little urine (dehydration)
What can cause it
The bowel and muscles recovering
Frequent loose stools and urgency in the first weeks after surgery or after a stoma is closed.
Next step: Time, diet and pelvic floor exercises.
Low anterior resection syndrome
Frequent stools, urgency, repeated small motions and difficulty emptying. It can last for months, and sometimes longer.
Next step: Tell your team; treatment helps.
Diet and medicines
Caffeine, fatty or spicy food, antibiotics and some other medicines loosen the stool.
Next step: A food diary; ask about changing medicines.
Infection or a problem at the bowel join
Diarrhoea with fever, blood, or increasing pain.
Next step: See a doctor the same day.
Weak pelvic floor or sphincter muscles
Leakage of wind or stool without warning.
Next step: Pelvic floor exercises and physiotherapy.
What you can do now
- Keep doing pelvic floor exercises once your surgeon allows them: squeeze for 5–10 seconds, relax for 10, and repeat 10 times, three times a day
- Use a fibre supplement if your team advised it
- Keep a food diary and avoid the foods that trigger you
- Use a barrier cream and clean gently with water
- Try going to the toilet at set times
- Take anti-diarrhoea medicine only if it was prescribed
Tests your doctor may order
- Examination of the back passage
- Stool tests and blood tests
- A scan or a camera test of the bowel join if you have fever or pain
When is surgery needed?
- Most people need no further operation. The treatment is diet, fibre, medicines, pelvic floor physiotherapy, biofeedback and sometimes bowel irrigation.
- A new stoma or another operation is considered only when symptoms are severe and treatment has not helped.
Related operation guides
Questions people ask
How long does it last?
It often improves over weeks to months. Some people have symptoms for longer, and treatment can help.
Does physiotherapy help?
Pelvic floor exercises and biofeedback may help, and your team can arrange them.
Is leakage common?
Yes, and it is nothing to be embarrassed about. Tell your team, because it can be treated.
This page gives general information and does not replace the advice of your treating team. In an emergency, go to the nearest emergency room.