Chronic constipation/Movicol - how long before things improve?

[TotalChaos]

DS, 6, has recently been prescribed Movicol (1 sachet a day, to be upped to two). He's constipated but not impacted according to the doctor. Before seeing the doc, either DS would do about one poo a week, or there would be lots of poo accidents. After a week on the movicol, there are accidents every day. Is it inevitable that things will get worse before they get better? Or is the Movicol not helping? I've not upped him to 2 sachets because of the hot weather - DS had a funny turn in school earlier this week that might have been partly dehydration...

thanks.

My daughter was 2 when she was diagnosed with chronic constipation and put on movicol, I found two sachets was to much for her and just left it at one with a dose of lactulose if she was really bad. she is now four and doesnt need either of them anymore

thanks mumoffour, glad to hear that your DD has come through it all.

My GP was reluctant to offer Movicol on the the grounds it can cause electrolyte inbalances. This could explain the "funny turn" Our pediatrician didn't offer it to us either. Opting for a mixture of Senekot and Lactulose.

My son has been on Movicol for four years and I think it is brilliant stuff!

It definitely made him worse to begin with, but he was very constipated and needed clearing out first. If they are very constipated the bowel loses tone and can soil for a ages. He was on twelve a day to begin with.

I would definitely stick at it, he now takes one a day and it maintains him at a daily poo.

We went through this with ds1. As feelingpostive said, the colon loses muscle tone and you go through a period of colon rehabilitation. The length of that depends in some part on how long the initial constipation episode has been going on. Ds1 was on Miralax (same as Movicol iirc) for a year. Same as mumoffour, we did not wind up using the amount the dr had initially prescribed as it was just too much. Since the first year I have been giving him cod liver oil and mega-probiotic supplements. It took about 2 years for everything to get right but he had an impaction in addition to the constipation.

thanks ladies, will keep on with it but not going to up the dose.