Am I giving my 4 year old lactulose wrong

[DoG87]

After a sickness bug this weekend my daughter has become constipated from lack of fluids, even though we tried our best to keep her hydrated. She’s been wanting to poo now since yesterday lunch time but can’t. It’s painful and she gets really distressed. I rang the doctors yesterday afternoon but couldn’t get a call back. A relative went to the local chemist & the pharmacist said we could give her lactulose. No instructions were given on how my daughter should take it. Read the leaflet and all it says is 5ml-10ml daily for her age. She had 2.5ml at 5pm yesterday and another 2.5ml at 10pm after waking up screaming her bum hurt. I have gave her 3 lots of 2.5ml so far throughout the day and was planing on giving her one more before bed so she’s had 10ml. As she’s still not poo’d and she’s still struggling, upset & distressed I looked on NHS website. That says she should take 5ml twice a day. That’s not what I’ve been doing I’ve been giving her 2.5ml 4 time’s a day. Will it still work ok? Shall I change to 2 lots of 5ml tomorrow? Also in the leaflet it says I shouldn’t give it to her without speaking to a doctor first but the pharmacist knew the situation and let us buy over the counter. Should I ring the doctors to discuss tomorrow? Daughter has never suffered from constipation before so I have no idea what to do

Is she now eating and drinking again? If there is not much in her system she will struggle to get anything out. I'm currently on lactulose. It leaves me feeling like I need a poo quite a lot of the time even if one isn't coming. I have to sit for longer than I normally would for one to come. And if I haven't been moving around i really struggle. I think it's worth trying to speak to a doctor, but if she's been poorly it will take a while for things to get back to normal.

Lactulose is rubbish. You need laxido or movicol. My DS was a withholder for over a year and laxido was the only thing that made him poo.

She’s picking at food but not eating lots. Sunday she ate half a packet of crisps, a slice of toast & humus, yogurt pouch. Yesterday she had maybe a couple of handfuls of cereal, a yogurt pouch, 1 slice of toast, a prune yogurt, a peach pouch, some pasta & pesto. Today she’s had a peach pouch, carrot sticks & humus and some left over pasta from last night. She didn’t drink great Sunday but been drinking fine since waking up yesterday. She started trying to poo and being in pain about 5 hours before I even tried her with lactulose so there must be poo there she wants to get out. She had 2 tiny poo’s this morning around 9. She screamed doing them and they weren’t even hard so I’m surprised it upset her so much. She’s done nothing else since but has started to have poo stains now when changing her. She tried several times to poo since this morning but nothings happening. She just gets distressed and says it’s hurting.

I’m on laxido at the moment as I’m pregnant. Taking a one sachet every couple of days just to keep me regular. What age are you allowed to give laxido from? Is it 12 years old?

Give her warm drinks throughout the day - very milky tea with a pinch of cinnamon usually sorts my DS out.

It can take a day or two to start working but 2.5 ml seems a small dose, we were prescribed that amount for a baby.

She’s been having a couple milky teas in the day so I’ll try the cinnamon, thank you

She had a total of 5ml yesterday as I didn’t get the lactulose until 5o’clock. By the time she goes to bed she will have had 10ml today I was giving it in 2.5ml doses as it didn’t say on the leaflet how to take it just that it was between 5ml - 10ml a day. I think tomorrow I’ll try one dose of 5ml in the morning and if she’s still not had a poo after lunch I’ll give her another 5ml then. Not sure at what point I ring the doctors

Try a child's suppository. If she's got a very hard dry stool stuck, the lactulose will just back up what's behind it. The suppository will loosen and lubricate it, and it usually works with a few minutes, then the lactulose will help thing keep moving. If she's impacted though, then a medical professional may need to administer an enema or do a manual disimpaction. Hope she gets relief soon, OP.

Maybe try sitting her in a nice warm bath to help her relax and help the poo move. DD had a couple of unblockages in the bath when she was younger.

I have to say though that lactulose was no good for dd, she had to use laxido paediatric and the first one was quite traumatic to shift.

@bambi1132

Lactulose is rubbish. You need laxido or movicol. My DS was a withholder for over a year and laxido was the only thing that made him poo.

Absolutely. We used to use lactulose before movicol was invented. I remember toddlers being on 30ml three times a day, and still not pooing.

Thank you everyone for your advise. She finally had a poo last night. She screamed but luckily was over in a few seconds thank goodness. I’m going to keep an eye on her fluid intake now to make sure it doesn’t happen again and her bowl movements go back to normal.

My 8 week old DD is on lactuslose and has been since 5 days old. She gets 2.5mls once a day. So I would say 2.5mls isn't enough for your daughter. Also I don't think splitting it into smaller doses will help. it needs to "irritate" her bowel so all in one go or just split to twice a day might be more useful

Great to hear she's been 🙂 Moving forward, cloudy (must be cloudy) apple juice is excellent - it has a sugar in it that stimulates the bowel.

When my son needed "help" our doctor suggested appropriate sized glycerin suppositories, as things like lactose can cause tummy ache (it gives me dreadful wind). Suppositories usually work pretty quickly.
I think we just got them over the counter but not sure if that's still the case as it was a while ago

Thank you for recommending children’s suppositories. I was looking into them actually and that was going to be my next thing to try if she was suffering for another day. Glad to hear they work well for children

She’s come home from preschool today and within an hour she had a poo no problems. So glad it’s not scarred her or made her nervous about having a poo.