Stool withholding

[Jackandjames]

My son is having a really hard time with stool withholding just now. He’s 6 and has had a couple of phases like this in the past but this is the worst. It started a few weeks ago when he had diarrhoea and found it painful to go afterwards. It then developed into him refusing to go until it had been 10 days and I took him to the doctor. We’ve been prescribed lactulose and another oral medicine but all it’s done is made him have painful cramps and overflow. He’s also now having accidents at night because his wee body just doesn’t have the room for it all anymore! He hasn’t voluntarily sat on the toilet for weeks now and he’s refusing it no matter what i say. He just says he doesn’t want to and he understands it won’t be sore this time as it’s soft, but he still says no. Just wondering if anyone had any suggestions of how to approach this as the doctors advice is purely to fill him with laxatives until he can’t psychically hold it. I’m so scared of traumatising him further by saying or doing the wrong thing, as he gets so upset.

If he won't listen to any reasoning about why he has to go or sitting and trying your option may be the Dr's route of laxatives. Had to do this with my son but he was under 2! I think at age 6 he should have the comprehension to understand. Have you tried a reward chart, encouraging a regular sit and a bigger reward for a poo? You could work this up over several weeks so he could earn a new toy even? My friends son withheld so long he ended up with a distorted bowel which causes him endless trouble. If he really really won't be encouraged for his health he'll have to have the laxatives...

Thanks for this. Sorry my post wasn’t clear at all (lack of sleep!) - we are doing the course of laxatives, but somehow he’s still refusing the toilet which just leads to constant accidents. The laxatives have dealt with the physical issue but the mental/emotional issue is what’s causing the biggest problem :(

We had this from when DD was 2 and had chickenpox. She was obviously much younger than your DS so less able to vocalise and rationalise with her. After years of battles with GP and constant lactose prescriptions when she was 7 the consultant we finally got to see prescribed movicol which was life changing. Consultant said it would be. Try the ERIC website. They have some great advice. Despite years of suffering DD has not been left with long term bowel problems and she would literally go months without a proper bowel movement so please don't worry too much at this stage. . The 'leakage' is overspill from the mass which builds up. It's tough, I won't sugar coat it but movicol changed our lives overnight.

This is such a tricky problem! This blog post has some super helpful tips for stool withholding:

https://theteachingspeechie.com/blog

He will likely need disimpacting, stool softners are the way to go. I would ask GP to prescribe movicol. You'll need to do the full disimpaction regime. Join the FB group movicol mummies and speak to the charity Eric. He's getting overflow because he has a blockage which will need to be cleared, then you can slowly bring down the amount of movicol.