I know that we have discussed this exact topic but it has been at least a year or so since we did so. Anyway, if you read my previous post you will have read that I am back to doing my bowel routine in bed and I am no longer on OxyContin to bind me up. Even when I was using my bedside commode and I was in an upright position... the Magic Bullets have seemed to have lost the potency they once had.
I began using them around 1990 when a coworker of mine told me about them. At that time, and for 10 years later, they worked lickety-split within 30 minutes and most every time I was completely evacuating all by myself. They were truly Magic Bullets! Even in 1996 when I was hospitalized for my shunt surgery and HAD to do my bowel routine in bed (after using the commode chair for so many years by then) and I had absolutely no problem going after the insertion of the Magic bullet. This is no longer the case. There was a time around three years ago that the makers of the Magic Bullets took them off the market but from my investigation I found out that it was a weird sort of marketing idea because afterward they were more expensive. Most people were told that the formula had to be 'or was' being changed, etc. etc. etc.... but I did not buy into that foolishness even if folks still believe that as gospel today. And it WAS THEN, and since then, that I have noticed a great difference by having them not work like they used to. Now.... no matter if I am doing exactly what I was doing before and now adding shredded wheat to my diet and other things for encouragement in the bowel department routine... I will feel a whole bunch of pressure* as if* I am going on my own but we will wait an entire hour and it simply will not come out. So I need the digital help EVERY SINGLE TIME because they're not working like they used to. One could say that my body has changed, etc. etc. and that may be true *but, * especially not being on that binding narcotic anymore, there is no reason I should not be going at least partially on my own. In fact, after weaning myself off of the narcotic... for a good week or more afterward I was going at all times of the day. Ugh! Loose too. My body was not used to all of a sudden not having the narcotic to buying me up a little bit (or a lot) after eight years and my bowels had a hay day! Fortunately it did not take much longer than a week to get it straightened out. But now I am having the opposite problem except for I am not bound up or constipated. When someone recently posed the question of possibly using two Magic Bullets.... I recently thought about that myself but decided that would be too rough on the lower bowel. They still DO get my stool right there and ready to come out but that is the end of the story. I remember a week in 1997 when I did not go for that entire week and could not figure out why. I began drinking prune juice daily, super increasing my fiber intake with absolutely nothing happening. It then dawned on me that I had began purchasing* generic* Senokot tablets that did not say "Senokot" on the box. So I had a family member go right to the store and get those and that was the whole problem! I sure went after that! That is not my problem now however. But... my bottom line question is still "Has anyone noticed the decrease in performance of the Magic Bullets over the last several years?" -- Lori C4/5 complete quad, 28 years post Tucson, AZ
