Trapped gas-can’t do this anymore

[Itneverends77]

Dd is almost 4, she’s had stomach pains since January. We’ve been to the doctors and hospital numerous times, she’s had various blood and urine tests-all negative.
Two eco scans have showed gas and one x ray has shown she’s impacted with poo and air.
We've been disimpacting with 8 sachets a day of Movicol for almost 9 weeks and started pico drops last week. Nothing has changed. Her behaviour has completely changed, she’s currently running around, shouting, tormenting the dog, she jumps around, throws things, sometimes hits me.
She has tummy ache from when she wakes, and on and off all day.
I feel like I’ve lost my little girl, so frustrating and upset to see her in pain everyday and not be able to help her, feeling so exhausted dealing with her behaviour, we can barely attend friends parties or play dates anymore, it’s impacted our life.
She’s due to start school in September, but I don’t see how she can, she’ll disrupt the class and teachers with her behaviour, when it’s not her fault, others would see her a just a *Naughty girl, but she really isn’t.
We’ve tried stomach massages, hot water bottles, gas drops, paracetamol medicine…nothing works.
I feel like the doctor has just sort of come to the end with it and really can’t offer me any more advice now…feeling quite desperate.
Has anyone been through similar, at my wits end

Hi OP. I'm not a medical professional, but your post did make me wonder if there is something in her diet influencing this. An allergy or intolerance perhaps? Have you had any advice or do have you had any previous insights into her diet? Sorry if I'm going up the wrong path. Didn't want to 'read and run'.

Have you tried a food diary to see if there's anything causing it? (Dairy, eggs, wheat, sweetener?)
If that much movicol isn't doing the job can you ask your pharmacist/Dr about an alternative.
Does she drink plenty of water?

Sounds really hard OP? I'm assuming she was tested for coeliac disease? I only ask because much of my DH's childhood was blighted by tummy ache, constipation and low mood due to undiagnosed coeliac? He also has IBS.

Unfortunately, I think you just have to keep going back to the Drs and asking for further tests / referrals / support. One of my friend's DC did have a long term problem with constipation and had to take movicol etc. for a few years. It did affect his mood and behaviour. He did eventually grow out of it but it was hard going. Turned a corner around 5 so fingers crossed for you.

I remember when my nephew had this they did a procedure in hospital to remove all of the obstruction. Sorry I don't remember the details but it sounds very similar to your poor dd.b

You can get a glycerin suppository, i think over the counter that makes you poo. My baby had it in hospital when they thought she was consipated (turned out to be cows milk allergy).
my son has also been through similar and we use calfig every now and again to make him “go”. Check with a pharmacist but i think lactulose can also be given to children and thats also very good.

@Somethingsnappy The dr said they’ve done all the main test, I know she had a gluten one and a milk allergy test, both negative

@User478 I kept a diary for so long and can’t see any pattern at all. I don’t know at this stage if she’s still impacted and it’s causing this or if it’s something else, don’t understand why the doctor can’t help us

@TheGrumpiest She had a test for Gluten? It was negative
I’m constantly messaging her and asking her what the next step is. We just had another eco this week which just showed some gas, she said she was happy the results were good (as in not showing anything else) I asked her what next? What do we do now? She couldn’t really answer but said she thinks it’s likely to be due to the constipation and to keep going, it’s been going on for months though

Hi Op, has the movicol and pico produced any poo at all? Disimpaction is a long process. There is a regime where you reduce the movicol over days or weeks but depending on the poo produced. Look up the Bristol stool chart to be able to describe accurately to professionals. You need to keep going until the poo is rusty water colour for disimpaction. Then you may need to be on a maintenance dose for a while. You may also need a higher dose of pico. Ask to be referred to a child's continence nurse for advice and support or look up Eric website.
It's a long hard process and yes affected behaviour here too with now almost 7 Yr old.
I would look into deferring school if poss at this stage if child is only 4 because it's easier to focus on a regime at home without the added pressure of school toilets, dignity etc. You may be dealing with soiled pants for quite a while.
Sorry. But continence nurses are good and will reassure you how common this is.
Good luck.

@Mally100 I’ve mentioned this to the doctor and she said it’s not a nice procedure and hard going on kids. Admittedly I hate the thought of her going through it and going into hospital, but what’s the solution!

I have had results with probiotics, high strength and magnesium supplements.

@Bunny2607 Thank you, I’m using the pico drops which is supposed to give you the urge to go. It seemed to work a bit at first and she was much better, but now it seems to make no difference.
She barely wants to eat now, she’s hungry but knows as soon as she eats, her tummy will hurt. She ate quite a lot for once yesterday as was obviously hungry and now this morning is just a nightmare.
She has a party tomorrow for one of her best friends, I'm dreading it as her behaviour is hard now, we’ve missed out on
so much though and don’t want to let our friends down. Just want our normal life back

I'm in no way comparing the two, but I had a cat that had a condition called megacolon, (impacted faeces, nausea, aggressive behaviour), and the vet prescribed liquid paraffin. It was really successful and solved the problem. I believe children over the age of 3 can take liquid paraffin, as a temporary measure.

My friend is a nurse and recommends a glass if warm prune juice before bedtime, which has worked for me. Not sure your 4 year old will be willing to drink it though. Also, glycerine suppository is good.

@Awumminnscotland I’m not in the U.K. but follow a group on Fb which is very good. She poos everyday and it varies from sloppy to harder, light to dark but never 3 consecutive days of the water yet. It just feels so long now.
Her behaviour worries me, it’s just so hyper and aggressive at times, is this normal?
It’s a pre school we’d be starting (they start formal school at age 6 where we are) she’s a really sociable girl and loves to play, so I’d really like her to go and not miss out on life, just feel so sad for her and just so exhausted with it all.

Oh I feel for you. Dd1 is 7 now and is absolutely fine but she stopped pooing when the first lockdown started (we'd just moved house too). After about 5 months of lactulose, imodium and her resisting opening her bowels she was impacted. I had to keep her off school for over two weeks while she was on the movicol, its not pleasant when it works. We had to have a high dose as well to get things started.

How much is your dd taking?

@Loudhousefun Im
not sure if that would be strong enough if even all this isn’t working. We were on really good quality probiotics but it didn’t make a difference.

@Loudhousefun What are the magnesium supplements please?
Also hate the thought of her being on all these sachets for so long

@Want2beme She has prunes in the morning but no huge difference, yes my friend suggested the liquid paraffin, was just a little worried to give it her.

@Floydthebarber She’s nearly 4 so is taking the maximum for her age which is 8 sachets a day. It’s been 9 weeks of taking then now though and she started with mild tummy aches and excess gas back in October, we had no idea then and it was only occasional. By January she was complaining of tummy ache more, so I took her to the doctors, we’ve been going through both the public and private system and getting no better.

Dds behaviour was also noticeably worse when she was constipated. It started when we potty trained her and she hated doing a poo in the potty or toilet, a couple of years of pottering along with her having to be reminded or made to sit on the loo and drinking fruit smoothies snd stuff. Since we used the movicol she hasn't been constipated since. She was definitely worried about the harder, large poos hurting.

The thing is, she’s pooing everyday, often just very sloppy/liquidy so I’m not sure how much is coming out.
We have the very odd day/half a day when she seems better and she’s back 😔but it’s mainly an almost constant tummy ache, even waking in the morning saying she has tummy ache, how can the doctors just leave her like this

@Floydthebarber 9 weeks of Movicol and still with tummy aches. I’m not sure if is the poo or the trapped gas, the doctor can’t tell me for a fact either way as she says she doesn’t know.
Do I go to another doctor or will it be the same?
i don’t even know if I’m doing the right thing giving all the sachets or if they could be making her worse.

Is she drinking enough liquid with it? My doctor stressed how important it was to drink plenty while taking it. I think in yoyr position I'd try another GP to see if they could suggest something else.

I mean, shes pooed not long ago but is still running around hyper and shouting/making noise

She needs to be seen by a gastroenterologist. Is it just your GP dealing with this or a general paediatrician? This needs a gastro specialist.