to go to A&e with my dd3 *pictures*

[littlemaemae]

My DD who is 3 has been having stomach/bowel problems for the last year. Diagnose as constipation. She can not pass a stool for weeks despite fantastic diet and laxatives and weeks is in severe pain most days. She is very petite and skinny but her stomach has swollen to look 9 months pregnant. Getting no where with doctors/hospital etc.
Aibu to think this is not how a heathy child's stomach should look.

Impacted up to her rib cage!!! Omg. Your poor DD.

Impacted up to her ribs ? I have a bad feeling about this.

Op, please arrange for your dd to be seen immediately in A+E if her temp rises, her breathing becomes laboured, her heart rate goes unusually high, she gets flushed or very pale and sweaty or she shows any other signs of distress.

Good luck.

Your poor wee girl. At least you're finally being taken seriously...not that it's much consolation when you have up go through disimpaction over the next few days.

Please take her to A&E.

And I NEVER say that.

You're being fobbed off. What's the point in more movicol when you've already been doing that!?

This sounds way beyond the average impaction/disimpaction routine.

I would go straight for the private treatment OP, but do your research to find a consultant that specialises in this area. A plain (fairly cheap) abdominal Xray is really the best first step to see the actual degree of impaction. Her bowel may be too stretched for the standard treatment to work.

You have been badly let down by the GP and the continence nurse IMO.

I agree with you AF,nothing about this situation sits right,impacted up to her ribs & just left?
There is nowhere left for it to go is there.

I would go to a&e too I think. Poor girl :(

Just to add, at the A&E, an X ray was organised immediately and the dr also felt around the belly. Immediately he said it was compacted poo. No questions. If anything, it was me saying it wasn't.

My family and I have benefited vastly from the NHS. But I must say we have had to push for answers. Call it pushy mummy or whatever, but without the pushiness, I have no doubt that we would cost the NHS and the govt more through disability, claiming job seekers and other medication.

LionsLedge our family is one,when my Dd eventually received the correct diagnosis it was to late,she is left even after corrective surgery with issues that can't be repaired,she will have problems for the rest of her life.

I always post the same advice on these threads (having been through this with my own 2 year old).

High roughage food can be a bad thing with small constipated children. They have small bowels and bottoms and things like weetabix and bran form large, bulky, dense stools that get stuck. The longer they are stuck, the bigger and harder they get.

Vegetable soup, stewed fruit, prunes, boiled carrots, porridge, lentils are all much better.

I hope you get some expert help for your poor little girl.

Impacted up to her RIBS and they still aren't taking immediate action? I think A&E is all you have left now :(

Sorry if my posts confused things earlier.

I'd be in A&E camping out til I was confident in treatment plan and it was working.

Time to pull up those big girl boots. Put on your I'm not being fobbed off and get her to A&E. Maybe your DP is best placed to do that.

DT2 was horribly constipated last year - we tried disimpaction with movicol and it didn't work - she was taking 12 sachets a day by the end and pooing out water, but it hadn't touched the disimpaction at the top of the gut. (Btw she was 10, so far more able to understand that she had to drink this liquid, even though it doesn't taste that nice - we dilute it in blackcurrant squash.)

She ended up being admitted to hospital, and had something called Kleen Prep administed through a nasal gastric tube, as well as something called Picolax. She had to take 2 litres of the Kleen Prep over 24 hours. It's generally given to adults when they need a complete clear out ahead of something like a colonoscopy. Adults would have to drink it, but we knew there was no way she'd be able to drink that much, hence the NG tube. The worst bit was the tube being put in, but after that it was pretty painless. We were in a side room with a bathroom shared with only one other patient, which was absolutely necessary, as she was on the loo a lot!! We were in for 3 days and it really helped to clear the blockage. She's still on movicol - two sachets a day - but she doesn't seem to have any lasting constipation issues.

If you take your DD to A&E, I would ask for this procedure to be done - tell them that Movicol simply hasn't worked, and as she's so little, she simply can't drink all that she needs to in order for it to have any effect at all. I'm sure the dosage would be lower for her, but it would definitely be worth a try. (Btw, we're in North London and are under the care of a specialist paediatric gastroenterologist, whose details I can pass on if you'd like me to.)

Maybe your husband could bring her to a and e when he comes home. I am no expert at all, but I wouldn't leave it any longer.

Please go to a and e!

I know they want to try all this stuff but you can put that in place once your Dd has had a good clear out!

Your poor little DD :( You are doing brilliantly so far OP but please do take her to A&E if you think she needs it, and do not be afraid to put your foot down. Make a list of everything that's happened so far, take an advocate if need be, but if you are worried at all then take her and make them take you seriously.

I hope this is all behind you both very soon (no pun intended!)

I think bearing the amount of time it might take to see any improvement (if one is possible on this regime), I'd want to get your dd's pain and distress sorted quickly. So for me it would be A&E and refusing to leave until something is done to help her.
This is the time for assertiveness and firmness and explaining that it is absolutely not acceptable for your dd to be left in this amount of pain and to not know if there is a structural issue with her anus that might make the movicol etc ineffective. Before the right course of action can be taken, this issue needs checking out first. There is a lot of incompetence and dismissal when it comes to bowel problems in my experience and although it shouldn't be a battle to get stuff taken seriously, if thats what it takes then go for it. Calm and assertive as possible. It's a hard thing to do, but sometimes it really is a case of the less wiggle room you give people, the more they have to take action. . You must be feeling like nothing on earth right now.

Have you started the disimpaction programme? It can start to work very quickly, but you need have got lots of sachets of movicol down her by now for it to work tonight. If nothing shifts in the next couple of hours I would take her to A and E. That amount of impaction is probably putting her internal organs under serious pressure.

I agree, go to a and e and refuse to leave until they do something there and then.

This can't go on. It just can't.

lionsledge our child had something happen to him which resulted in long term medication and constant monitoring. We now return to the hospital for yearly checks but still v paranoid. But before he was diagnosed, we were fobbed off with 'it's a virus' X a million times. Eventually it was a paediatric oncologist who suggested we be referred to Evelina. Things got sorted but stayed in hospital for 2 weeks, we had to juggle work (I just took emergency leave and thankfully boss at that time was v understanding) and juggled younger child as well.

My GP told me that 'all children at 4 years old act up like this'...

Push for it op. If it helps, take your husband, take a friend. Take someone.

On a separate note and separate topic, a friend had to go see the teacher at her child's school (that teacher was notoriously v bully-like and dismissive). She took her father (she's a single mum) and the presence of another adult, older one did help my friend stand up to the bully.

Just to add, my son had similar at 3, it built and built until it took over his and my life, it took me breaking down at the nicest doctor after 2/3 weeks of visits, and she sent us to the children's clinic, he had an enema, under partial sedation (like he was tiddly) and it was quick and effective, took him home and he slept it off, and woke up back to his normal self - he then was on movicol, gradually lowered over 3 years and attended the 'poop clinic' every few months. He still needs to keep an eye on his diet, eat fruit and smoothies. He doesn't remember it.

The most shocking thing about this whole story is your GP's refusal to refer, or take you remotely seriously. My lovely GP would move heaven and earth for me if I were in your situation. Find a new practice at the earliest opportunity.

I am onto the third sachet this evening. The first one I couldn't get her drink it all.
We are playing tea party with it in some orange squash in the bath and she is drinking it.
Will get as much as I can in tonight.
Things need to get moving.
She hasn't even had much overflow today which is unusual