4 year old soiling self.

[Luciemariee]

Hi about 6 months ago my 4 year old starting being bloated & constipated and having accidentd long story short doc told me to do food diary & give him mevicol food diary was no good. Movicol made poo too runny and was constantly pooing himself even more. Went back 3 more times & last time said stop giving movical if he's pooing on toliet regulary. Last 2 weeks he's pooing more in pants I'd say twice 3 times a week apart from tonight done it 3 times and its been loose he says he needed to fart n comes out. He started reception last minth. Need advice not getting anywhere!!

im obviously not a doctor but could it possibly be an allergy to dairy? maybe you could try removing dairy from his diet for a month and see if it helps?

Oh ye I haven't thought if that I'll give it a go thanks

It sounds like he might be impacted and the poo coming out is overflow. If you look on the Eric website they have good information on constipation, but basically he might have a big hard lump of poo which is stuck and only some watery poo is squeezing round the outside. The treatment is movicol disimpaction, meaning taking increasing amounts of movicol every day up to 12 sachets a day until he is pooing regularly several times a day, then slowly reducing down to a maintenance level to keep him passing a soft stool every day. Might be worth asking the go about if things are still not resolved?

Ok this is the worst week he's had done it atleast 6 times in 3 days all between 3 & 6

I’m inclined to think, as someone has said, that he’s still constipated/impacted and the soiling is liquid stool leaking around the blockage. It’s called encopresis.

Movicol is supposed to make the poo runny - it’s a stool softener. If your child has a habit of trying - and failing - to withhold poo, then that would unfortunately lead to a lot of poo accidents, as you have noticed. But the key thing is to keep up the Movicol until the bowel is cleared, and then lower the dose very gradually until they’re going to the toilet daily and it isn’t too runny. Stopping it entirely usually gets you back to square one.

I think you need to go back to the GP and ask for a referral. Some areas have continence nurses that are really knowledgeable. Others will refer you to a paediatrician who can feel the abdomen for blockages/request x rays etc.

In the meantime, take a look at this website: www.thepoonurses.uk

Most likely that it's a backlog of constipation, with solid rocks sitting in a stretched up rectum, then liquid poo from higher up leaking past as accidents. He probably doesn't need a referral, just to fully treat his constipation.

Go back to the GP. Saw that you are worried that he has faecal impaction (backed up poo) with overflow diarrhoea and that he needs disimpaction. This is using absolute shedloads of movicol to make them poo enough liquid stuff to dissolve the rocks. It takes quite a few days of pooing vast amounts of liquid poo, then lumpy poo, then very liquid poo to achieve this. They usually need to be off school, because accidents will increase. But if you don't do it, the rocks don't shift. Then the rectum is still stretched up, so need to still not stop the movicol/laxido, but carry on at a dose that means going every day, without pain, with soft squidgy poo for months (at least as long as they've been bunged).

Vast majority are perfectly sortable by the GP with movicol. Guidance is only to refer if they don't improve after sticking with doing this.

Many people find eric.org.uk useful. Or, if you prefer personal experience, do a search: there are a lot of threads about this on here, which may be helpful to you.

Thank u all for your help you've really helped x