Can movicol just stop working?

[Edenviolet]

Dd2 is 4.has been on movicol since 6 months old due to severe constipation caused by EDS (we think, there's also a ? over the possibility of coeliacs)

She started off needing a lot as was impacted and has needed that regime a few times over the years but usually 1-2 sachets a day keeps her 'regular' which is every 2-3 days. However she has now gone 9 days and nothing despite having 2 sachets last mon, tues, wed and thu, 3 sachets on fri sat and sun, 2 yest and today. Nothing at all is happening.

Can movicol just stop working? It seems to be less and less effective the older she gets. She is on the paediatric version.
Also, is there anything else I can try to get things moving? When do I need to worry, the longest she's gone before is 10 days which is what it'll be tomorrow.

If she gets constipated you need to up the dose to whatever the maximum is per day, usually 4, or more if recommended by dr. I don't think it does just stop working usually

I just wondered as she's had it since a baby if it would be less effective as time goes on.
Its an odd sort of constipation, dd seems to just go days and days and days but her poo isn't actually hard or dry, never has been she just doesn't seem able (or willing) to get it out !

She went yest after ten days and we are keeping to 2-3 sachets a day and hopefully the bigger daily dose will make things more regular.

The movicol acts as a stool softener and if the muscle tone is low (which with EDS is a given) it can be less effective if the bowel is losing function and tone. It's still doing what it is supposed to do but the bowel is not moving the stool along. We use bisacodyl drops (I don't know the UK brand name) which irritate the bowel into evacuating the stool.

No, it doesn't stop working, but sometimes children get inexplicably bunged up and you really have to ramp up the dose to get their bowels moving again. I had this just last week. DD (on Movicol since 7 months, now 3.1) didn't poo for four days, and I ended up giving her five sachets - her normal dose is 2-3 - before the poonami happened. Ended up running a bath for her at 4pm!

You may also find that their usual maintenance dose starts getting inefficient, so you need to increase it. DD was on two sachets a day for ages, until she started getting irregular and bunged up quite often. Switched to three sachets and she's pooing daily again.

I've also been reassured by a gastro consultant that Movicol doesn't make the bowel lazy with long term use.

It's not about lazy bowels but it can be about colons stretching and losing tone because they were not working properly in the first place and thus the movicol being less effective.

My kid's at the extreme but we can give him a litre of movicol and it will just sit there. 5ml of bisacodyl and 50ml of glycerine buffered by saline and it is on like donkey kong. He does have an ACE stoma.