Friends 2yo DD wont have a poo. :(

[Emmielu]

My friends 2yo DD hasnt been for a poo for 12 days now. Shes tried laxitives, fruit, liquids, curries & was prescribed stronger meds yesterday afternoon to help because shes at the point now where she wont eat a lot, she cant sit down, she cries because her back & belly hurts & she screams in the bath because the heat makes the pain worse. 2yo has had the meds last night & this morning & it should have worked by now. It hasnt. Its not that she has had problems with going to the loo before because she hasnt. She has however suffered some abuse at the hands of her dad & has witnessed abuse towards her 2 older sisters, however the visits have stopped since 2 weeks ago & the kids wont be going on visits at all.

My friends knows what the last resort will be. Going to hospital & the doctors there doing it their way & her 2yo knows this too but its literally like she doesnt care. Its like she is terrified to go to the loo in her mind so she stops herself. When she was on visits with her dad, she held her poo the whole time till she was home. Is it that shes so used to it now? I dont know what else to suggest to help my friend. Her DD is starting to look so unwell its awful. :(

What is the stronger medicine? Dd2 ended up in hospital with this and was given picolax, she needed 2 doses but it did the job. She is now on movicol for the foreseeable future.

Is your friends DD drinking and weeing? this was a concern with my DD, which is why she was referee to hospital after 10days.

yeah shes drinking & weeing but just not pooing. there isnt even any wind now! im not sure what the new meds is called all i know is it was stronger. I remember my grandad being on movicol. How horrible for your dd to be on that for the foreseeable future. :( Did being referred to hospital sort of knock it into your DD just how important it is to go to the loo?

My dd1 was on lactulose and senna when she was 2. It took more than one day to work though. I was told it could take up to a week to work. It is really horrible watching them in pain. My dd used to regularly look like a woman in labour!!!

Once this is passed she will need to stay on the meds for a while as her bowel will have 'stretched' and will need time to recover.

They can get used to holding their poo for a long time, dd could easily hold hers for 2/3 weeks!

Its shocked me how long they can hold it for. I mean holding it for 2 days at her dads was shocking to me but its now been 12 days, her belly is huge & rock solid & she cant really eat. How long do you think it'll be before they send her to hospital?

No unfortunately it didn't solve her problems, hence the permanent movicol. She is worried pooing will hurt, which I think is what caused the issue in the first place. Origional issue was in November and reoccurs slightly when I don't balance her movicol dose right.(which is a science in itself!) It sounds like there may have been some trauma around this area for your friends DD which means she is now scared to go. Elk I know what you mean by seeming like labour pains, that is exactly how dd2 was.

I would think the doc is keeping an eye in her, the fact that she is drinking and weeing seems a good sign to me. I suspect the new Med is movicol and it can take a little while to build up to work. As long as she is under the care of a doc I'd be happy to follow their advice re hospital.
The consultant in hospital told me that withholding issues in toddlers are actually quite common, and yes I was amazed how long she could go through willpower alone, she is one stubborn girl. Feel free to pm me if your friend needs more advice btw unfortunately due to dd2 I'm a bit of an expert in this area!

Sorry for slightly disjointed message, I'm on my phone and editing is tricky !

God, poor child, sounds awful. The fact there isn't even any wind passing through means there must be quite a severe blockage. Surprised she hasn't been hospitalised already.

Was she never given suppositories! In my experience, there comes a point where there's no point pouring in any more meds at the mouth end, you need to sort out the impacted poo at the bottom end.

That was supposed to be a question mark, not an exclamation mark, sorry

Well there is a breakthrough! Excuse the gross term but late afternoon she managed a golf ball sized poo. Rock solid & was very painful for friends DD. Excited & relieved as my friend was, she knows theres a lot more to come before shes satisfied with her DD being back to normal again.

Has she tried glycerine suppositories?

DD, also 2, suffers really badly like this. She has been on lactulose/movicol for ages now but a month or so ago we had to take her to A&E because she was suffering with waves of pain which were making her scream they were so bad. The paediatrician diagnosed foecal impaction and she was put on a "disimpaction regime" (sp?). Basically every second day we had to double her Movicol sachets - 2, 4, 6, 8 until she passed the "plug". We never actually got the plug but it got DD going again and since then we have been recommended to go back to 1 sachet a day but increase to 2 if there are any problems.

If your DD doesn't continue to go now, it might be worth your friend going back to her GP and asking for a paediatric appointment which is what we had in the end. DD is now being seen regularly for this. Psychological issues seem to be the most likely cause in little ones but there can be physical ones too. In my case, they even asked about the birth so it can be a very long-standing issue. In your friend's case it sounds like the abuse could be the problem, poor little thing.

Either way, I know how horrible it is for toddler and adult. So I hope your friend gets the problem sorted out soon but medication may be the answer at least for the immediate future.