
Vacation constipation – A potential vacation downer
Jul 1, 2016
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There is perhaps nothing worse than to have stomach issues when you’re travelling. It can put a real damper on your experience, cause you to miss out on all the fun and cause you to constantly be on guard. It can be downright miserable.
We’ve all heard of traveller’s diarrhea, but another common travel ailment is vacation constipation. It is actually a real condition that affects a large number of people when they travel.
“As many as 40 percent of people experience constipation while they’re away from home, due partially to their gut bacteria’s reaction to the change of setting,” says Mollie Bloudoff-Indelicato in The Atlantic. “Any time you leave your general habitat, it’s throwing your gut microflora off balance,” says Brooke Alpert, a registered dietician.
The condition is largely caused by a change in a person’s regular habits, and we all know that travel can throw us off from our normal daily routine. It can be caused by:
“Because everyone’s microbiome is different, there’s no one-size-fits-all trick for preventing traveler’s constipation, Alpert says, but there are a few methods that typically prove helpful,” Bloudoff-Indelicato says in the same article. These include:
If you find that vacation constipation is a recurring issue for you when you travel, talk with your doctor to find a solution that will make travel more comfortable.