DD 3yo withholding poo - no doctors appt till 27th

[Thesunrising]

DD, 3 next month, has always had a slow digestive system, pooing every 2-3 days, but this has become much worse in the last couple of months and the duration between bowel movements is becoming longer 3-5 days and DD is getting distressed and is in pain when it finally happens. Poos come out very hard and large. Today after 5 days with no poo, DD telling me that her wee is hot too. :-( and has been dancing round on her tip toes all afternoon trying to avoid going to the toilet.

I don't think her diet is a problem - it's varied and she has plenty of water, fruit, vegetables etc. I've done poo goes to pooland, tried bribery, sticker charts, I'm running out of ideas. We were at the gp a couple of weeks ago with an unrelated cold/virus and they tested her for a possible UTI which came back clear.

I've got an appt with the GP now for the 27th, but I'm wondering what I can do before then to relieve the immediate issue. Is it possible to get anything over the counter thats going to clear the build-up - can I get glycerin suppositories or any other kind of laxative? thanks

Movicol all the way.

It's really really good stuff. Looks like water when mixed up, tastes like chocolate.

Ask for an emergency appt and get some.

She's probably feeling really miserable, hope it gets sorted out soon.

Movicol-paediatric, which is the one you need, is now a prescription only medicine. So if the prune juice/figs/lactulose doesn't work then you'll need a prescription. ask for an emergency appointment with your GP. They have an obligation to see her sooner than 3 weeks. Or try a walk in centre.

No it's not-I get it over the counter at my local boots.

You can get the movicol adult and the half but the paediatric BNF says movicol-paediatric is POM. I just checked. Perhaps it's recently changed?

Went to a secon pharmacy (lloyds) yesterday and the told me Movicol was prescription-only for children and advised instead a glycerin suppository. I tried to administer this but it was a total disaster and left DD in tears so I stopped trying pretty quickly. After that a game of lying on our backs doing bicycle legs had the desired effect of stimulating another large bowel movement. She was a lot happier and back to her normal self after that. However I'm going to go back to GP tomorrow for an emergency appt as she can't have another few days like the three she's just had. Thanks everyone for all your advice.

Or maybe my Boots hasn't realised yet as everything I have read says prescription only, too!

We had a very similar problem with our dd. Lactulose was hopeless. Just gave her incredibly bad and very painful wind/tummy cramps. We had more success with movicol also.

It took her/us a year until things finally sorted themselves out and bloody hell, that was a tough year. We tried a fun toy box in the toilet, star charts, chocolate buttons etc. What eventually worked, and this sounds slightly odd, was bribing her with money. For some reason at 3.5, she became obsessed about money for her money box and slowly but surely, just the promise of 20p or 50p if could sit on the loo and do a poo was what finally started to turn thing for us. That and the reverse psychology "I bet you can't sit on the toilet and do a poo" etc. And since then, she's been great poo'er. Every day, same time, no problem at all. I even have poo envy lol!

So I sympathise, its bloody tough (and unbelievably frustrating). I hope you find a solution that works. Good luck.

You have my sympathies, it's horrible for kids & their parents

Mine is a lot younger than yours, but we have similar problems. He withholds, poo gets hard & painful, he tries to stop the next one, it gets worse, etc.

There are lots of good movicol stories on this thread, and that's great - we definitely needed a prescription btw - but I just can't get DS to take it: a sachet needs to be dissolved in water, and he refuses to drink from anything other than my boob.

Something that's had good results though is a sachet of probiotic every morning, which I mix with a spoon of yoghurt or fruit purée. It generally works! On those occasions when he hasn't pooed for more than a couple of days I also mix some magnesium powder in with the probiotic, and that usually does the trick. Magnesium is a muscle relaxant, so it's much more difficult to hold it in.

The other bit of advice is that you should keep up whatever stool softener or laxative you give for a while after poos have returned to normal, so that she forgets that they were painful.

Hope some of these remedies work for you!

And can I just say that Trumpton's poo dance deserves to be released as a single

You need long term Movicol, for sure. Bear in mind it's something you need to keep up for months, years even, until the bowel sluggishness has improved. Ask for a gastro referral as well, to rule out any physiological problems.

How old is your DS, Gurke? You can try dissolving a sachet of Movicol into a really tiny amount of water, until it dissolves and looks syrupy, and then mix it into food/yoghurt/whatever. That's was suggested to me by a consultant, btw!

DS is 1 1/2. Consultant specifically said that if the sachet wasn't dissolved in the full 60ml (or whatever it was) then it wouldn't work. I just laughed in his face at the thought of getting DS to take 60ml of anything... I didn't try to give it as a paste though, it's true.

Anyway, the probiotic/ magnesium combo work pretty well!

Prob you have had advice you need now but just to say we have had this too. You need to get to a doctor soon or talk to one on the phone if she says her wee is hot as it could be a UTI. But my DD has had this without UTI for over a year. Paediatric movicol is the answer if she is withholding and can be used long term. Fig syrup can not be used as a short term bridging method. You aren't alone btw!

Remember to ask GP to prescribe the chocolate movicol as it is so much nicer than the lemon and lime. We just mixed it with milk and went down a treat.

Sleeplessbuny my DD did this and the Lactulose was useless as she wasn't constipated - she was holding in the diarrhoea the lactulose caused and made the situation even worse.

Movicol is what sorted her out but my GP hadn't even heard of it!!!

Get Movicol - it's not a laxative - it softens the poo so when your DD goes it won't hurt - poor little mite is terrified of going as it hurts so much but the Movicol sorts that out - DD is 8 now and we haven't had any problems since.

I used to put it in her milk with some honey to disguise the taste - Hope your DD gets better soon x

We've found the plain Movicol to be easiest - it just tastes faintly salty when dissolved in water, so easy to hide in squash, fruit juice or milk.

Just come back to this thread. GP has prescribed Movicol - a prescription to clear the immediate blockage (another 5 days since the last bm) and then enough for a maintenance dose for a couple of months.

As Gurke mentioned above, the challenge is now to get her to drink it. I managed to get most of two sachets drunk by her today in fruit juice and then a hot chocolate. I have to give her four tomorrow - which I'm dreading as she never drinks much in one go.

It sounds as though from the above that it can be dissolved in any liquid. I wondered if it might be possible to mix one into a frozen lolly pop?

Frozen lolly pop would work. Jelly would also work. It's absolutely not true that a sachet HAS to be dissolved in 60ml of water. You can dissolve it in less, and then as long as the child drinks plenty of non-Movicolled liquid afterwards, it's fine.

Jelly! She likes jelly - that will work. Thanks for the tip