Bowel Movement (BM) Tracker

How To Use:

1. First, write down the time of the bowel movement that you are experiencing. I would suggest writing the time that it starts rather than the time that it ends.
2. After that, please figure out how much urgency you experienced when you had to use the restroom. A 1 on the scale would mean that you had little to no urgency and that you were able to go to the restroom at your leisure. A 5 on the scale would indicate that you were either experiencing extreme urgency to use the restroom or that you possibly experienced fecal incontinence (you were unable to make it “successfully” to the toilet).
3. (By the way, please do not feel ashamed to write 5’s on your chart. I know first hand how angry and embarrassed having to mark down a 5 can feel, but please remember to treat yourself and your body with respect and kindness. You are not alone in this, and you cannot control the random urges of your body. It is not your fault, and you don’t need to feel ashamed.)
4. Then, look at the consistency of the bm. If it is hard and feels painful to get out, that should be a 1 on consistency. Conversely, if it felt like water coming out and has no real shape to it then that would be a 5.
5. Finally, write down the color of the bm. It may sound silly, but color is actually very important to register whether there is cause for concern or not. Common colors for stool are varying shades of brown, yellow, and green.
6. (I have also included a resource at the bottom of the page for you to assess what the color of your stool means!)

Purpose:

The purpose of this tracker is to help you put together a number of how many times a day you’re needing to use the restroom, and --on average-- what kind of consistency your bowel movements have. I definitely find this tracker incredibly helpful in my day-to-day life. After struggling with C.diff (a really nasty bacterial infection in the colon), I now know to look into my charts to see whether anything is concerning or not. This is also useful for long term use to possibly help recognize patterns in your stool. (And maybe you could even find out if something is causing those specific kinds of movements.)