I've read several posts about just the tip/beginning of a bowel movement being hard and the rest an appropriate consistency. Since there wasn't a dedicated thread, I thought I would consolidate and offer my advice. If the rest of your consistency is good, you're probably already doing all the diet things you should be doing with fruits and fiber and leafy greens, etc. This post is to help with just the tip that is hard.

Short answer: drink a lot of water that must be spread evenly throughout the day and do not eat too late at night.

Long discussion:
I always heard you had to drink a lot of water but my mistake was not spreading it out evenly throughout the day. I would get home from work and catch up on my recommended water intake but it didn't help. Then I got a 25oz water bottle & made sure I drank evenly throughout the day. I set benchmarks to make sure one full bottle was finished by noon, another by the end of the work day at 5pm, and another before bed.

Also not eating later at night since my BM's are in the morning, if I would eat too late at night it would stay in my system longer & as I'm sure you know the longer it's there, the drier it is.

This was my obsession for a time so this is my advice, it helped me out - thought I'd share. I'll mention something else though - you should be able to make it through a hard tip stool. You deserve to make it through a hard tip stool. A few days of not having one is likely not going to make the root problem go away. But, hopefully this will help you with a little relief until you do get the root problem fixed. I know how you feel and wish you the best!

This has been a huge issue for me. I've seen it referred to as the "plug effect" on here.

It's those first small, hard pieces that always result in my retears.

It's so frustrating! I do drink pretty consistently throughout the day (about 650ml every 3 hours or 2.4 l a day) so not sure if I need to drink more? Very frustrating

Do you guys have a retear everytime that hard tip takes effect? Mine is an on and off thing. There are good days and bad ones.