Oily Bowel Movement: Should I Be Concerned?

Have you ever had really oily stool? A couple of weeks ago I had a pretty big scare. I got up in the morning and felt a bit of a stomach ache. I brushed my teeth and got ready for work, but got a sudden urge to use the toilet. So I sat down to do my business. It felt really runny like I had diarrhea or something. But my stomach felt better so I proceeded to wipe myself off when I noticed that my stool seemed oily. I looked down into the toilet bowel and was shocked at what I saw...

It looked like some sort of science fiction special effect! Droplets of dark brownish-orange oil were floating on top of the water and leaving an orange residue on the sides of the bowel. It really was a shock. I had never seen anything like it.

The first thought that came to mind when I saw the darkish color was that it might be blood. But it just didn't look like blood because it was so oily...I mean, these were definitely oil droplets. I couldn't help thinking the "scary" thoughts. Maybe I have some sort of cancer or some other disease. I just had a baby girl...and now I might not see her grow up!

Interestingly, I didn't feel that bad. After I did my business, I actually felt pretty good. But then I thought, "That doesn't mean anything...people get cancer all the time and not feel a thing until it's too late." I grabbed my Kaiser HMO card to call the number for scheduling a doctor's appointment. But then I thought maybe I can do some research on this first.

I got on the internet and entered "oily bowel movement" into Google. I started reading all sorts of stuff about why you could have oily stool. There were lots of reasons...everything from diet pills to celiac disease. But none of these descriptions seemed to fit. So I kept reading.

Then I started coming upon some forums where people were describing the same dark-orange, oily stool problem. It turns out that these people all ate a type of fish before this happened. And guess what? My wife and I had fish the night before! Apparently there is a type of fish that can cause this result in some people (my wife didn't have this problem). The fish is called Escolar. It is a type of mackerel that is found in tropical waters.

Unfortunately for consumers, escolar is sold in the USA under many different names (deceptively, I might add). It is sometimes sold as "butterfish", "white tuna", "orange roughy", "codfish" or "sea bass." My wife and I had what we thought was sea bass the night before.

The fish accumulates large quantities of wax esters in its muscle meat, which cause the resulting oily orange diarrhea. Apparently, the diarrhea can occur anywhere from 30 minutes to a day or so after eating the fish. And for some people, eating this fish can cause other symptoms like nausea and vomiting too.

There are several counties that have banned this fish from being marketed. Lucky for us, we in the USA get to risk a lovely little surprise every time we eat one of these mislabeled fish!

I will say that I'm glad it's not some cancer or other disease. But I won't be eating fish anytime soon!