DD1 refusing lactulose and movicol- what's next?

[EauRouge]

Hello,

I've posted about this before and got some lovely support but it's got worse now. DD1 withholds, it's been going on for about 8 or 9 months now and we've tried controlling it with diet, but she's incredibly picky. She won't take lactulose, she says it makes her cough and she just throws it up again. I did have some success with movicol but now she won't even have that, she says she can taste even half a sachet in her drink and refuses it. She hasn't had anything except breastmilk for 2 days now. She won't even eat strawberries which she normally loves.

Where do I go from here? I really want to avoid suppositories but I'm having no luck trying to get movicol down here. I've tried freezing it in ice lollies but she says it tastes funny. I've tried prune juice as well, no luck.

If anyone's got any tricks that might work then I'd love to hear them! TIA.

DD is on Senakot, she said she could taste the Movicol aswell.

Thanks. Are you using the syrup or is there a powder you can put into a drink? Mind you, DD1 is suspicious of drinks now. Even the juice cartons, you have no idea how hard it is trying to get movicol into one of those!

I diluted the movicol with neat squash. One sachet to about 20ml squash. And then once mixed gve it as medicine in a syringe. Didn't bother hiding in drinks - I could taste it and they could too. So just mde it into medicine and dispensed accordingly. Mine are pretty good at taking medicine because they know it has to be taken o make them better.

Syrup, and it is tasteless otherwise DD won't have it.

movicol in not from concentrate Orange Juice with bits. I take it every day and you can't taste it at all. I promise!

Yesterday I tried fig syrup and senakot syrup- both vetoed by DD1. I tried senakot syrup in an ice lolly made from apple juice but that was turned down too. I think we are going to have to pin her down and give her some lactulose in a medicine syringe. I don't really want to force it on her but I can't do nothing.

How old is she? I'm guessing about 2yo?

Can you reason with her? Point out the pain in her tummy needs to go away and wouldn't it be nice if it was easy to do a poo. Also have something nice to have (eg strawberry) to take the taste away. Add to that a star chart. Ever time she drinks it without being forced she gets a sticker which leads to a day out/something special.

I found once my dd had got into the habit of taking it, she forgot to complain at the taste. She didn't like it, but it became a fact of the day and she did it with no complaints. She was 4yo though, so a little older.

Honestly it's a medicine I would just give her the options of which one she would prefer but insist that she has to gave it, end of.

She is 3.9yo. I've tried reasoning with her, tried rewards, I got her a book that seemed to work for a while and then stopped working- nothing seems to be working now, I'm starting to get so stressed about it. I'm going to take her back to the GP tomorrow to see what he suggests.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, I appreciate your help.

Honestly I would start using what normal method of discipline you would use with her.

What would you do if she were diabetic and needed insulin shots?

If she has long term constipation she will feel ill and it will do long term damage.

I would be doing, drink this and get a sticker or do a time out and then drink it etc etc etc

OP I feel for you. My DD is 3 and we had the same problem. After the first refusals, we started to mix it with smoothies - the innocent ones that you can buy are nice and thick so we add a bit of water to dilute it a bit. It masks the taste pretty well I think. Obviously not letting her see you mix it.

Also we give it to her with a couple of straws and make it into a kind of game: "no it's not yours, it's MY smoothie" etc as she laughs and tries to drink it all up. DD is pretty suspicious as we were also trying to get evil-tasting penicillin into her, but this worked for us.

Random I think an injection is easier to get in a objecting 3yo child than something by mouth. At least my dm and a nurse managed to hold my 10yo db down for a jab when he refused. I doubt they'd have managed to get him to swallow something the same way.

Yes, the medicine syringe did not work well at all. I did manage to sneak a bit of lactulose into her drink and last night she finally did a poo. I think I'll still take her to the GP though.

We put movicol in diluted Vimto and she doesn't seem to ever notice now, and it does become par for the course as time goes on.

Our gp recommended mixing the movicol with flavoured milk. DS has never mentioned being able to taste although he does know it is'poo milk'.
Does she have the paediatric sachets or the "half" ones? The former are much easier to disguise.