Bristol Stool Chart for IBD: What Each Type Looks Like

Talking about poop is awkward. Even with your care team, even with a partner who’s seen you at your worst. So most of us fall back on vague words: “pretty bad”, “not great”, “kind of okay lately”.

The Bristol Stool Scale fixes the vague part. It gives you seven simple types to describe what you’re seeing, so “kind of loose” becomes “type 6, four times a day, for the past week”. That’s easier to remember, easier to look back on, and easier to explain to someone helping you.

What Is the Bristol Stool Scale?

The Bristol Stool Form Scale was published in 1997 by Lewis and Heaton at the Bristol Royal Infirmary in the UK. It sorts stool into seven types by shape and consistency. It’s used widely in research and in clinics, and you’ll see it in a lot of IBD apps, including Flarely.

Here’s the scale in plain words.

Type 1: Separate hard lumps

Small, hard, round pellets that don’t stick together and can be hard to pass.

Type 2: Lumpy sausage shape

Formed like a sausage but lumpy and bumpy rather than smooth. Still harder than ideal.

Type 3: Sausage with cracks

Shaped like a sausage, with cracks on the surface. Formed and usually easy to pass.

Type 4: Smooth and soft

Smooth, soft and snake-like. Passes easily. Types 3 and 4 are usually described as the easiest to pass.

Type 5: Soft blobs

Separate soft blobs with clear edges. On the looser side, and something many people with IBD see on and off.

Type 6: Mushy with ragged edges

Fluffy, mushy pieces with no real shape. Loose stool.

Type 7: Entirely liquid

No solid pieces at all. Watery.

There’s no one “normal” with IBD

General health articles often say types 3 and 4 are normal and everything else is a problem. Life with Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis rarely fits that neatly. Some people see type 5 regularly. Others swing between types from one day to the next. What’s usual for you is something to work out with your care team, not from a chart.

That’s exactly why a record helps. Instead of judging one day against a textbook, you can see how your own days have been over a few weeks, and notice when things change.

What’s worth noting alongside stool type

The type on its own is useful. A few details next to it make the picture much clearer:

• Blood. Whether there was any, and roughly how much: none, a little, some or a lot. It’s the kind of detail that’s easy to forget a week later.
• Urgency. Could it wait, or did you have to go right away? Urgency has a big effect on daily life and is worth recording on its own.
• How many times a day. One loose BM and five loose BMs are very different days.
• Pain. A quick 1 to 5 is enough.
• Mucus. If it’s part of your experience, note it.
• Time of day. For example, whether you were woken up at night.
• Whether it felt complete. Some people often feel they need to go again straight away. If that’s you, it’s worth a note.

You don’t have to log all of it every time. Pick what matters to you and keep it quick, so you actually keep going on bad days.

Looking back over a few weeks

A single day tells you very little. Over two or four weeks, a record shows things memory tends to blur:

• How many BMs a day you’ve been having, on average.
• Which days had blood or urgency.
• Whether things have been steady, better, or worse.
• What else was going on: meals, stress, a busy week.

A record shows what happened and when. It doesn’t tell you what caused what. If you notice something, bring it to your care team and talk it through together.

When to talk to your care team

A log is a way to describe what’s happening. It isn’t a way to manage it on your own. Talk with your care team when something changes, worries you, or doesn’t settle. Contact them promptly about a lot of blood, many watery stools a day, fever, strong pain, or signs of dehydration.

When you do talk to them, a sentence like “mostly type 6, four or five times a day for two weeks, with a little blood most mornings” says a lot in very few words.

How Flarely makes this quick

In Flarely, a BM takes three taps: blood, urgency and pain. Stool type and mucus are there if you want them, with a picture for each of the seven types so you don’t have to remember the chart.

The Summary tab lays your days out side by side: a calendar of BMs with blood and urgency marked, and charts over 7, 30 or 90 days. If you’d like a focused start, the 14-day plan lets you pick two things to keep an eye on, and on day 13 you get your own summary. When you want to share, Flarely makes a 30-day summary PDF in one tap.

For more on what to log, see What to Log Each Day With IBD and Food and Colitis: What to Track.

Frequently asked questions

What are the seven Bristol stool types?

Type 1 is separate hard lumps, type 2 is lumpy and sausage-shaped, type 3 is a sausage with cracks, type 4 is smooth and soft, type 5 is soft blobs, type 6 is mushy with ragged edges, and type 7 is entirely liquid.

Is it worth noting stool type with Crohn’s or colitis?

Many people find it useful because it replaces vague words with something specific. A type number, plus blood, urgency and how many times a day, makes the last few weeks much easier to describe.

How often should I log my bowel movements?

Whatever you can keep up. Logging every BM gives the clearest picture, but a few quick logs a day are far more useful than a perfect record you abandon after a week.

What if my stool type changes a lot from day to day?

That’s common with IBD. Look at the trend over a couple of weeks rather than any single day.

Does a stool log replace tests?

No. A log describes what you’re experiencing. Tests your care team orders tell them things a log can’t. The two go together.

---

Flarely is for your own wellbeing. This guide isn’t medical advice. For medical questions, talk with your care team.