The Gentle TableSimply delicious low fibre meals
Cooking for after a low anterior resection

After a low anterior resection

The one situation in this book where the usual advice partly runs backwards, and low fibre is not always the answer.

After a low anterior resection, especially once a temporary stoma has been reversed, the rectum has less capacity to hold and less warning to give. The result is a cluster of symptoms usually called low anterior resection syndrome: urgency, going often, several motions close together, difficulty telling wind from stool, and sometimes leakage. It can take months to settle and for some people it does not fully go away.

What the guidance emphasises

This is the situation where the advice partly inverts, and it is worth saying so clearly. Management here often means adding soluble fibre back in, in the form of oats or a psyllium supplement, because soluble fibre gels and firms loose stool and reduces urgency. That is the opposite of what a narrowed bowel needs.

The rest of the advice is more familiar. Limiting caffeine, alcohol, very spicy and very fatty food, and for some people lactose. Regular meal times rather than grazing. Keeping a note of what preceded a bad day, because tolerance here is genuinely individual and mostly worked out by trial.

Because this book follows a leaflet that lists oats under foods to avoid, the recipes here do not use them. If your team has told you to add soluble fibre, that instruction outranks this book, and porridge is the usual starting point.

What this book does

Recipes tagged for after a low anterior resection are soft, mild and gentle on the things that commonly provoke urgency. They are not an attempt to treat the syndrome, which is a clinical matter with its own pathways, including pelvic floor work and medicines.

How long

Bowel function after this operation usually improves over months rather than weeks, and what you eat is one part of a longer plan your colorectal team and specialist nurse lead.

New bleeding, severe pain, vomiting or a sudden change in what has become your normal pattern are for your colorectal team, not for a cookbook.

Foods to know

Recipes for this situation

Sources

← All situations