Oily Orange Diarrhea

Thank god for the internet and this forum. I too was freaking out until my girlfriend found this ehealth forum. I had no idea what was happening. I didn't feel sick, just a little extra gassy. Next thing I know my girlfriend is pointing to a yellowish-orange stain on the back of my shorts and asking what it was.

I thought it was just diarrhea, but there really was no feces and I no feeling of anything leaving my body. Only what eventually looked like olive oil leaking out of my rectum. It was the color of an optic yellow tennis ball, had a very slight mineral smell, glistened in the light and left an oil slick on the water in the bowl.

Turns out that I tried escolar (a fish) at a new restaurant last sat. Night. By sun. Afternoon, the embarrasing leaking had begun. I tried taking 2 immodium ad and a couple of gulps of pepto-bismal, to no avail. I wound up taking 2 more immodium ad and a few more gulps of pepto-bismal the next morning, again without any improvement.

By mon. Night (48 hours after eating the fish) I was finally back to normal. Very strange. My girlfriend tried a bite of my fish that night but had no symptoms.

Does anyone know if there are any longer term effects from eating this fish? Or if a tolerance builds up? The fish was delicious, and i'd love to find a way to continue eating it--without the consequences, of course.

This resource must be the best on the web! We have just returned from a holiday in bali with my daughter experiencing the distressing and quite bizarre symptoms described by so many others in this thread.

My search for help elsewhere on the web was of little comfort: general advice about scans, samples and tests: and yet I was so sure that this very bright, orange oil was not produced by the human body, but must have been some sort of undigested substance passing through: the "leakage" effect had me totally beaten - what was going on!! And here were the answers - thank heavens! And yes, she and another girl in our travelling party enjoyed several serves of our hotel's fish and chips for lunch, and both had the same symptoms: this was a food not shared by the adults, none of whom experienced this unpleasant situation. I am sure it was the fish being discussed here.

Thanks for the comfort and information: a tip (not great fun for kids or guys, but practical) a very thin sanitary pad or panty liner helps mop up the oil until the process finally ends - change regularly. At least it saves the undies! I have also had some success with removing the stains from my child's cotton undies in very hot water with a bleaching or stain removal agent, so at least give it a try if you have had staining occur. I imagine women's undies in synthetic fabric would be a lost cause.


Ps: after 24 hours of oil leakage things seem to be settling down. Fish was last consumed 52 hours ago, thus about 48 hours from consumption to symptoms. The oil started to come out gradually, and then increased substantially after about 6 hours or so.

I got hit with the oil slick this am. Out of the blue, standing in the kitchen making breakfast. Boy, was I worried and embarrassed! My fiancee found this site, and I am relieved to find out I am not alone. I spoke to my doctor (a gi guy, no less), who had no idea about the symptoms and their relation to eating fish. In my case, I was served a "white tuna" (another name for escolar) special at a vietnamese restaurant on saturday, and was showing symptoms by monday morning. Mercifully it seems to be passing only 5-6 hours later. No discomfort has been associated with the episode.

I've found a few things on-line since. Escolar (aka "oilfish") contains something called gempylotoxin which the fda says causes diarrhea. I even found a disclaimer on a website selling the stuff. I'm pretty annoyed that the restaurant did not inform me of this before selling me the dish!

Here's another interesting set of postings related to the fish, from the culinary ranks:

http://forums.Egullet.Org/index.Php?Sho wtopic=9543&mode=linear

thanks everybody for sharing these fishy stories!

My dad was having this exact problem all day today. And we couldn't figure out what was going on. He came out of the bathroom this morning complaining of an oily discharge. By mid-day, he was "leaking" this orange fluid through his trousers. He was *so* embarrassed. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. I plugged his symptoms into google the whole day, only to come up with things like liver malfunction, accute pancreitis, malabsorption. . . We even made arrangements to see his doctor, possibly for another liver function test (he has had this done only a few months ago, and it came back clean.). I re-read through the lists of side-effects for his prescription medications-- none of which showed symptoms of this nature.


My dad ate orange roughy in a huge bowl of seafood stew about a day and a half ago; i'm convinced that some of the fish was this escolar that all of you are talking about. It's a shame, too, because he's been trying so hard to get more omega-3 by eathing more fish lately.


I'm not in any way advocating that symptoms like this should automatically be dismissed as seafood-related; we will take my dad to the doctor if it persists (he's due for a full colonoscopy in about 2 weeks, too.). But given his record of medical checkups, this is it.


It's 3 am on a monday and I want to thank everyone on this message thread for sharing their experience, no matter how embarrassing. Especially those who shared a "timeline" of when the fish was consumed. It seems no one is alone with any health problem.


Now, if I can find a detergent that will get the orange out of clothing. . .

Thanks everyone for your help. 3 pairs of underwear, 2 pants, one computer chair, 1 sick day, and 1 embarassing moment at the home depot later, I finally know what's going on. I also had what I was calling escobar 2 days ago with my girlfriend. She did not have the symptoms til the next day which really confused me and led me to think that it was because I was the only one who ate the skin. Well, it's nice to know that i'm not melting from the inside out anymore.

Being that i'm in my second day of symptoms now with apparently 2 to 4 more days....Has anyone come up with a creative solution for not having an incident while at work? Unfortunately like others, I have also seen times where I did not even know there would be a leak until it was too late. Unfortunately again, I work in a location where i'm doing tech support and can't leave my desk for extended periods of time while on the phone. If anyone has come up with something good, please pass it on. Thanks.

I took my client out to a local fashionable restaurant of his choice yesterday. Since he was the guest of honor I let him choose the entre.

It was escolar.

This is a large account I have been trying to land for over 2 months. Unfortunately I had to leave the office early today. I was suppose to follow up with a phone call to confirm our next appointment. Instead I had to drive home early sitting on a stack of newspapers.

I was overcome with a warm sensation while sitting at my desk. When I stood up I was dripping a bright orange oil.

Since I am about to turn 40 I just figured this must be normal. Luckily I found this message board! My thanks to everyone for sharing their stories and information.

As far as I can tell the leakages comes from a fatty acid that cannot be absorbed in the colon. I dont eat fish but I found that after eating deep fried chicken (once in the form of chicken parmesean) I had the same problems a few times. (maybe the heat from the oil changes the fatty acids?) the only the solution I can think of would be to eliminate the oil from getting into the body in the first place, which is easier said than done. Other than that im sure it just slips down the walls of the colon (where its not water soluble) and puddles around the rectum until it leaks. It sure is a terrible way to find out that its been building up. Ill keep brainstorming about ways to avoid it but its not looking good. Also, if I get it again ill (eww) take a sample and see if I can find out what it is. Im leaning toward it being very similar in chemical structre to that olestra fat subs. From the late 90's.

It looks like you fish eaters have a solution to the orange mucus. For those of you who cannot link a fish source to the orange colored substance in the toilet bowl, you might want to check out this thread at a celiac forum:

http://w ww.Glutenfreeforum.Com/index.Php?Showtopic =9069

you will need to browse down to about post number 11 before the orange colored mucus begins to be mentioned.

If you happen to have trouble with the link, go to www.Glutenfreeforum.Com. Then select the forum topic heading of celiac disease - post diagnosis, recovery/treatment(s). Then scan for a thread titled "let's talk about poop". Remember that the orange part doesn't pop up until about post 11.

Thankyou so much for your help!! I've had to take the day off work because I have had orange oily poo. I ate butterfish for dinner and i'm having stomach cramps and cant control myself. Now I know what has caused it. Thanks again for the info :)

I am was so happy to finally find an answer to my problem!

I ate orange roughy at around 5:30 pm ((tuesday)) and around 11:30 pm ((wednesday)) I noticed a foul odor, so I checked my underware and there was a bright orange stain. More of the liquid came out, especially when I passed gas or went to the bathroom. Curiously, little came out during the ngiht while I was sleeping, but in the morning the symptoms reappered. The symptoms have yet to go away, is there any way to speed up this process?

Oh my gosh!!! This is soooo weird! Several months ago, I had diarrhea which had oily orage stuff floating on top, but the only thing I ate different that could've caused it was a boat-load of cashews the day before. Could it have been from so much oil in them???? How strange....

That is very interesting. Not to pleasant for the participants though.

I will stay away from fish---especially in the restaurants

Cool! Well, i'm glad I figured out what was wrong with me way back then!!!
At least the effects only last about a day...

I have the same issue from time to time and I eat alot of orange ruffy fish when it seems to occur. This weekend, I eat at least five filets of it and then came the orange oil. I also take flax seed oil tablets and I believe the combination of the two could be the culpret. I am going to stop the fish and flax seed and see what happens. When I wipe, it is a great deal of oil and messy...Not clean. Does anyone feel this is dangerous...Or is it just too much oil to digest?

Wow, I thought I was coming down with some disease or something. Twice in 1 week I got this episode of this orange oily stuff leaking out. It was wierd, like usually you can tell what's on deck on the way out, but not this stuff, it just slips out...Yuck. I thought I was getting old and this stuff happens. Here it turns out I had butterfish both times the day before...Thanks for the info! :shock: :oops:

I had this oily discharge problem when I was urinating this morning and I was shocked to say the least. After reading through the posts, I now realized that it was the tuna I ate yesterday - rough in texture, and orange in colour.

The only thing is that the oily discharge was not was orange ; it was green. What could that mean?

How much are you guys eating? We eat escolar once or twice a week at our local sushi bar. I've never had this problem. But we don't eat large fillets of this fish.