Movicol Dosage query - aaargh Poo the sequel

[TotalChaos]

Ladies. DS has chronic constipation, but not impaction according to GP. He has been on one sachet of movicol daily for a fortnight. Before the movicol he was having a few ahem poo accidents a week, then a few weeks clear, then a few accidents. Now the movicol has kicked in the accidents are daily, and stools are mostly vile and liquidy, so it's all harder to cope with.... I'm meant to be putting him up to 2 sachets a day, but don't want to because of hot weather/increased risk of dehydration (DS has a bit of a funny turn at school on Tuesday).

So - if one sachet a day is making things worse, should I consider downing to half a sachet a day? or should I expect a few hellish weeks. Both GP and pharmacist told me that accidents were pretty unlikely as movicol is such a gentle laxative

sorry not really advice, but I would like to know this too as DS3 was given movicol for chronic constipation and ive been using it on and off really altough poo's havent been quite as bad as what your dealing with (DS is on 2 sachets a day and it makes it very soft and not runny) But wasnt sure if it the right thing to do? or is he meant to take it constantly? was gonna ring drs on monday to find out.

Gosh. How old is DS? DD (NT) had encopresis as a toddler (misdiagnosed for a year as toddler diarrhoea due to overflow, boke) and she was on 3-4 initially, then down to 2, then 1 as a maintenance dose. It took about a year to get her in a good habit and to be able to drop it, but after the inital week, there was never another impaction.
How does GP know there is no impaction? Feeling tummy? Because that missed DD.

DD never had looseness with it though, it bulked it up if anything.

thanks!

bigweehag - yes, GP just felt tummy - so I guess not the most accurate of methods. DS is 6 btw.

mel - I got the impression that it's quite a long term med, that the kid takes for months, as even once they are sorted you don't want the situation to be as bad as it was. but obviously check with your docs.

Thanks total choas thats what I thought but didnt want to give him too much if it wasnt needed.
I agree with bigweehag though DS has never had liquidy poo's with it so maybe check with your Dr- maybe its not agreeing with him or something?

Total i use it regularly, i was advised to reduce the fluid volume from the stated 125ml per sachet to 100ml per sachet if i was 'too loose'.

HTH

We used movicol under GPs direction for over a year. Then was referred to a specialist Poo nurse who was brill and gave us a poo chart. Basically ds had impaction and constipation. We had to build up movicol to get to the point where ds poo was gravy like no lumps and then reduce dosage to get to normal consistency then vary dosage if consistency got too loose or too hard.

We did this over couple of weeks then managed to cut them out almost all together now only use on rare occassions.

So I would reduce dosage. My poo nurse said GPs don't always understand how to use movicol correctly.

Hope that helps

My ds is impacted, he soils all day long pretty much, and now it appears to be having an effect on his bladder too according to the paed "poo" nurse we see, as he has started wetting too. He is 3.10yrs.

He initially was on 2 movicol a day then upped to 3 a day, then 6 a day (apparently you can give up to 12) plus lactalose but then he refused to take the movicol.

Now he has been given picolax to clear (impaction so bad) and then senna plus lactalose to use instead of movicol.

oh dear pucca, how stressful for you both! oddly the very first signs of constipation were wee accidents with DS....

thanks marvelous and kurly for your posts. marvelous - i am too scared to alter the dilution, in case of any risk of electrolyte balance, I would only half the dose. paediatric movicol is slightly different - its 6.9g to dissolve in 62.5 ml

kurly - I've decided to half the dose. I reckon that worst that can happen is that any blockage will be a bit slower to shift iyswim, and given this seems to be a long haul problem...