ongoing CONSTIPATION in a 3 yr old

[debs2011]

hi,Im at my witts end now with all this.my son has been constipated from birth ,he has been on lactalose and then when turned 1yr old movical which i think is brilliant and does help..but the problem now is my son has sufferd so much he has a fear of pooing.He will not poo,he is still in nappys to because of this problem and he is due to start school in September.I have nursery nurses and health visitor and doctors working with me.But still not getting anywhere.My son now refuses point blank to poo and can hold it in for weeks and be in severre pain and discomfort and end up with a really sore botty.how can i stop him fearing pooing and get him to poo and also use a toliet..any ideas please help!!

My DS (3) gets constipated now and then, and has subsequent reluctance to poo. Doesn't sound nearly as bad as yours - he couldn't hold it for weeks - but for what its worth last time we offered him unlimited strawberries/tinned peaches/grapes etc all day long, so that he went completely the other way. He couldn't hold it for too long and eventually he realised it wasn't always going to hurt.

Also we went to see the doctor who told him it wasn't a good idea to hold it in and would hurt more - and despite us telling him that until we were blue in the face without any effect, he listened to the doctor.

Hope you get it sorted somehow.

Weeks?! Poor thing. Have you used suppositories with him? My nearly two year old has been on lactulose since 6 months and we have glycerin suppositories so if he goes three days without a poo, out come the suppositories and he is forced to go (can take more than one, but he's not allowed to get away with not doing one). This means he never gets really backed up and it has become more routine as he doesn't fear it so much as it never gets really bad to pass.

This has been pretty successful, we've been able to reduce his lactulose dose and now he only has it if he goes a day without a dirty nappy.

ask GP for referral to a specialist clinic, to get a scan to se how far 'backed up' he is and to get a plan of how to help DS recover

From what my gp said, if they just get backed up for long periods of time it stretches the bowel which will take months to recover.

debs, personally i would see a nutritionist, i cannot imagine there's anything wrong with him physically so it must be his diet. Im guessing that he has milk substitutes? If so - look into giving him raw cows milk.

yes, raw cow's milk would be perfect, as tuberculosis can cause quite severe diarrhoea and would certainly sort out the constipation

Usually constipation is solved by including lots of vegetables and fruits in your diet but I'm sure you've tried that? If not, Prunes or Kiwifruit usually sort constipation out quicksmart.

This sounds like it might be an issue that needs solving by a specialist doctor. I'm not sure you'll get much specialist help on MN.

I assume you're involved with specialist 'poo' clinic doctors, if not it might be worth following this up. Would it be worth looking at the psychological side of this issue as well as the physiological? It's been going on for a while so perhaps the two elements have become combined and it is no longer just a phsiological 'problem' and some additional advice and other perspectives might help? :)

www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_27?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=gut+and+psychology+syndrome&sprefix=gut+and+psychology+syndrome

Have you tried him on pro-biotics? Not a solution in itself, but will probably help him become more regular (along with lots if fruit - not bananas) once the holding on/fear issues are tackled.

They do kids ones at healthfood shops.