ASD and Constipation - Help!!

[SallyBear]

DS4 has ASD, is deaf and is non verbal. He has always been a selective eater. He will eat fibre (fruit and vegetables), is not hugely keen on meat but we get it in somehow and will drink Ribena and fruit juice all day long. What he has always been bad with is poo. The days between poos are stretching to about 10 days apart now. I have a job getting medicine into him and have had to resort to suppositories a few times when he's been feverish.

Any of you have a DC who is awful with poo, and what do you do to encourage bowel movements. I'm getting quite desperate. Seeing his paed tomorrow and also the GP to see about a prescription to help him. How I will get whatever into him, I don't know.

Anyone out there who can help me please?? Thanks.

we have/had this and Dd is now on movicol.

if he withholds for such extended periods then this will cause the bowels to stretch and widen. so you need something to break this vicious circle.

afaik, movicol is usually used.

cutting out gluten has also helped us.

DD refuses most liquids, but good old fashioned bribery and corruption works for now

She is down to one sachet of movicol a day, which she takes via a drinking straw and some chocolate buttons, while actually sat on the toilet.

I've built the step up so she can sit with her feet on a flat surface, and make sure the bathroom is very warm and there are no water splashes about (major sources of anxiety)

I set the 5 min sand timer and we sit and play clapping games, or she gets to play on my phone. She has had to quite literally be re-taught how to use the toilet. She was so anxious about being in there she would only do what she had to, and never emptied her bowel.

Another one using Movicol here. DD2 is a very good eater and has tons of fruit and veg but is often constipated and needs Movicol to just help things a little. She's a terrible drinker but bribery is always good.

Son also on Movicol. Hospitalised here in UK and almost admitted in US following X-ray. It's common also for kids with ASD to have slow digestion/general anxiety causing the back up.

Our son has had this for 2 and a half years, he has 2 movicols a day which I hide in a carton of orange juice, and I've just recently got him a prescription for senna, which he will have in a little squash, it hardly tastes of anything so really easy to hide in a drink and stimulates the bowel to make some poo come out, it generally comes out n his sleep but I'm just glad some is coming out cos the longer it all stays inside his tummy the worse the constipation gets. A brilliant book to read is constipation, with holding and my child by dr Anthony Cohn.

Movicol here too.. DS2 ended up being admitted to hosptial for fecal impaction a couple of years ago.. and he is verbal but had no idea that he wasn't going. He never drank enough either.

Now we moitor his fluid intake carefully and he is on two sachets a day. If your ds is having 10 days bewteen poos he WILL be very backed up and prob will need mega doses tp start clearing himout and reduce the overstretched bowel.

It is a very common problem unfortunately :(