Son wetting and pooping pants

[Pattypa]

My DS started wetting and pooping on himself only during the day over the last 3 months. Saw the gp who examined him, tested his wee, found nothing, guessed he might have consipation/ encopreses, put him on laxatives and referred him to the continence nurse. There's a big waiting list to see her in our area, and it's going to be 8 weeks to see her, but TBF she has emailed us some questionnaires and poo/pee calenders to fill in.

Since starting the laxatives he's been pooping himself 3-5x a day with almost diarrhoea, but beforehand he'd poop himself 3x a week with what looked like normal poo.

While I'm waiting for the appointment I've done lots of googling and frankly it's terrified me when you read about Crohn's, Hirschprungs, whatever. Thankfully he seems oblivious, but I can't send him to school like this. He looks in perfect health. I think the laxatives made it a whole lot worse. Should I just stop them, almost all of his accidents were at home or while out playing, he only pooped himself once at school, and should he just risk it instead of missing school? I've spoken to other moms of kids his age (8), and several of them said that they've experienced accidents at his age and the kids go through phases.

All help and suggestions thanked in advance in case I forget.

Have you tried the ERIC website and helpline?

Reported.

I've had a brief look but I hope we're not at this stage, I hope it's just a phase that we can manage in-house. The other mums have been fantastic, I was surprised how many admitted to similar problems with at least one of their kids. One of them worked at summer camps as a team assistant for this age group in the summer and she was amazed by how many kids turned up with laxatives, spare clothes and even pull ups. She describes the number of wettings and soilings as epidemic since the other epidemic which reassured me a little

Pls speak to ERIC. The longer this issue goes on the more likely his bowel will become stretched and then it may take years to resolve.

Thanks, I will, I really appreciate your concern and help

Meant to add that his teacher has been fantastic, keeping in contact, everything. She wants him back in the classroom, poopy pants or not. It's me that's keeping him off. She says there's at least 3 other kids in the class with similar problems and she puts it down to diminished toilet training during lockdown down. What a star!

I managed to speak to the bowel and bladder nurse yesterday. She advised me to do the sweetcorn test, where basically you get them eat sweetcorn, and if it appears in their poop within 36 hours, they're not blocked up. So off to Aldi yesterday, luckily he like's it and we had it for tea. Anyway at 10 this morning he had sweet corn and poo pouring out of the ankles of his jeans (sorry to be so graphic). So safe to guess constipation isn't the issue! Spoke to her and the GP, both said stop the laxatives, she wonders if it's behavioural. Don't know why, she's brought the appointment forward to two weeks.

You are certainly not alone. I have an 8 year old who becomes constipated because they think he has toilet phobias. Been through it all. Really bad abdominal pain from being bunged up. Painful to poop because it's hard so won't poop anywhere. The worst situation is when they're in pain, feeling sick because of being blocked and you're going to hospital because they can't sleep. The worst situation is holding on to lots of hard poop with overflow leaking poop constantly. Bladder becomes obstructed so started wetting himself too. The laxatives make it slightly, less pain, better but he has huge liquid diarrhoea poops that explode out of his pants and go everywhere. It's so bad that we're all pleased if he does a big poo of normal consistency, even if it is in his pants.

Psychologically it's made him very nervous.