Child constipation

[Jadeybaby1990]

Hi everyone!!
My 2 year old has been suffering with constipation since she was just a few months old and has been on movicol since,the thing is even with movicol she's still struggling so much!!
It causes her to bleed when she manages to go,she tells me it's hurting her and now she's making herself sick from straining so much!!
She drinks plenty of fluid,eats fruit,tried prune juice etc anyone got any other suggestions??
Fed up of seeing my daughter in pain.
TIA
Xx

How much movicol is she on? I had similar with ds1 and we had a few weeks of 2 sachets a day and are now maintaining at between 1/2 and 1 sachet a day. It's taken months but he's no longer scared of doing a poo and doesn't try to hold on to it ( which of course was just making his constipation problems). But I would definitely go back to Drs, its horrible seeing them in such pain and discomfort

Does she need the dosage changing? have you been back to the gp?

It sounds as though she needs her dosage looking at.

Ds (4.6) ended up on 12 sachets a day last year to clear a blockage!

Hi, we are in exactly the same situation with our 2.4 year old. She has been constipated since a few months old, been given Movicol and lactulose and yet she is still suffering. Like you, we have tried more fluids, extra fruit, prune juice etc and her stools are still hard and the size of tennis balls - she knows it's going to hurt and cut her so she holds it in even more, which obviously makes it build up and increase in size.
Does it affect your day to day life like it does ours? We often have to cancel plans and spend days in, with her screaming because she can't go and is in so much pain :( then finally after 4 days she goes but the screams are heart breaking. Have you been back to the Gp? We are under the dietician for her poor weight gain/failure to thrive and are due to see dietician next month, so if went get any new suggestions etc will be sure to get back to you :) sorry I can't be much help right now.

Next week**

She's only on one sachet a day and its always been like that,but the doctor said she can have movicol until she's 2..she's also got another medicine she can take if she's really struggling..sodium picosulphate (I think) but even that has no effect now. She's a healthy weight,so I wouldn't say she's failing to thrive but she gets scared of going and sometimes she will be straining for days before she goes!
She still gets on with things and will play etc but she can be really restless throughout the night,and I'm quite scared like you coffeemonster1 that she will try and hold it in through being scared of the pain.
I've been back to the gp endless times and get told its a common problem in children and given more movicol and diet advice but I can't do anymore than I do with her diet and to be quite honest it states on laxatives that they shouldn't be used as a long term solution! Xx

Had similar issues with DS, don't really do parenting books but would thoroughly recommend 'constipation withholding and your child' - Anthony Cohn, easy read and very helpful

If she is developing an issue with pooing then medication is the answer , the decision to go needs to be taken out of her hands, you need to look at dose. Movicol never worked on DS (it's a rather inert bulker) , but Sodium Picosulphate worked, prescriped by peadeatric (?) consultant he started on 7.5 ml working down to 2.5mls for nearly two years (dr didn't want him on it for more than 2 years). Speak again to Dr ..

Good luck, DS is fine now but really stressful problem for a while, none of professionals took it seriously until I feel it was too late and problem of withholding ingrained

I think a higher dose would really help - you want a few weeks of the poo being really soft (like mr whippy Icecream) because then it's too soft for her to hold onto, it's not diarrhoea and you still get a "proper" bowel movement and it will help get over the fear aspect as there will be no pain. Then when the pooing is pain free then you can look to reduce it. It seems like you are already doing as much as you can diet wise. Movicol is also good because it doesn't work like other laxatives, it just draws more water into the bowel so the volume increases.

We have been on it for nearly 6 months and are very gradually now weaning off it, DS doesn't need the movicol anywhere near as much anymore as the constipation is far better (we also had the days of not being able to go out, and screaming for hours before he "birthed" his poo). The reason DCs can end up using it for so long is more for them to forget about the fear and pain and also so the bowel returns to normal size - it can end up stretched (which is why when they do the poo it's so blooming large and hurts even more) and needs time to adjust. Think it's called a mega-colon. DS is now 3.3 and we are hopefully seeing the light at the end of the poo tunnel!

I would definitely go back to drs though (and I would up the movicol in the meantime, but that's just what I personally would do). I've also read of other posters having scans (x-Ray?) to check how bad the constipation is as part of a referral

I would ask your gp to refer you to the constipation clinic. We were referred 4 months ago with dd4 and she's made so much progress since. She was soiling her knickers regularly just with small amounts of poo so I thought that meant she was too loose not constipated. Dr explained that the soiling was just what was getting through and that she had lost control of her bowel. He said we needed to clear her bowel out to begin to retrain her to have regular daily movements rather than withholding poo for 10 days at a time then ending up in agony trying to pass the most enormous solid poos. So she ended up on 10 sachets of movicol a day until it was literally just a watery substance then we cut the dose back down by 2 per day. If it's cut back too quickly they can end up constipated again.

She's now on 2 sachets a day and is going regularly. Just waiting until monday to contact hospital to find out what to do with her now. I didn't want her to be on medication long term either but since seeing the dr at the hospital she has gained confidence and is no longer in pain

Ds will be on movicol long term as the combination of low muscle tone (he is disabled) and the fact he has lost sensation, means he is often unaware that he is pooing.

The continence nurse we see said that often the problem she sees is that people don't up the movicol for long enough for the problems to resolve.

Thanks everyone for your advise..Sorry to hear your all having similar problems,slightly reassuring that were not the only ones with this problem!
Weve never been told to have any more than one sachet a day,and since shes been on it since just a few months old she has had periods of not being constipated where weve been told to cut down to half
a sachet then to half a sachet every other day,weve done as the doctors have said for pretty much 2 years but the min we start cutting down on the movicol shes constipated again and it just seems like shes going to be on movicol for such a Long time because she cant seem to go without it!
I am going back to the doctor next week,but im more concerned that something cant be right for her to need medication for this long, when she drinks alot,eats well etc,after all we dont all need laxatives etc to go.