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sandyn

Anyone have advice for bowel problems

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Hi, R has been suffering from constipation since July. GP has given him lactulose (which he has been taking), but has now decided its disgusting and will not take it.

 

On the dietry side, R will now eat brown bread, and will drink Vimto cordial - not the fizzy one (the sugary version unfortunately) by the gallon. He previously would hardly drink at all, but I think he drinks about a pint of vimto a day. I am also trying to get him to eat more fruit, but its not easy.

 

Over the last few days his movements have been very perculiar - hard stools, followed by runny ones. Today he is secreting clear mucus. I have googled this and I think he has stools have become impacted. The treatment for this sound horrendous - removing the impacted stools by hand. R had a blood test about 4 weeks ago and 3 people had to hold him down!!! I don't know how on earth he would cope with this one!!

 

Has anyone had any experience of these problems?

 

Many thanks

Edited by mossgrove

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Hi sandyn...

 

Spent over a year trying to track down the causes of my son's bowel probs (constipation and projectile/'solid' vomiting)... i always suspected dairy, but took advice of paediatriacian who assured me it couldn't be that for far longer thasn I should have, including all the lactulose/fybergel etc...

Finally went with my instincts, ditched dairy and son better improved massively within days.

 

Not saying that'll be the case for you, but worth checking out :)

 

:D

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Hi, did your sons bowel probs appear suddenly or has he always suffered?

 

R (Hes 9 in a few weeks) was a regular once a day man, but has always hated the whole process. He completely strips off and I always have to wipe his bottom. I only thought I'd only be wiping bots for 2 years of their lives!!! Oh what little did I know!!

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Marcus has had problems forever with his bowels. He was late to train and then got so constipated he was afraid to go. He would hold himself al day and then soil himself in his sleep, not pleasant at 3am I can tell you. We had a referral to paeds and he was prescribed lactulose and sodium picosulphate. At one pint he was taking twice the adult recommended dose. He still hates going to the toilet and is now on movicol paediatric when he was switched to this he too was impacted and we had to folllow a regime wheir we started on 2 sachets a day and ended up on 12. this gave him diarrhoea but cleared the impaction we then got to a maintenance dose. Currently on 4 sachets a day. We mix it with squash and he is really faddy and is happy to take it as you can,t taste it when mixed in with another drink. We have been told he will be on this for the remainder of his life if we try to reduce it he just stops going again and i think this will also be an issue for him

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Hi, did your sons bowel probs appear suddenly or has he always suffered?

 

R (Hes 9 in a few weeks) was a regular once a day man, but has always hated the whole process. He completely strips off and I always have to wipe his bottom. I only thought I'd only be wiping bots for 2 years of their lives!!! Oh what little did I know!!

 

 

Hi again -

 

sorry, missed that bit that it was a new thing...

Now, my son always had bowel probs from birth. got worse when he moved from breast to formula, and then again from formula to bottled milk, which is why i strongly suspected dairy. If it's a new problem, my guess is he could be retaining - if he doesn't like going to the loo, holding it in for as long as he can. Once one days get's 'backed up' everything coming along behind gets stopped by that, leading to the kind of leaking and compacting you describe. Lactulose, (any oral medicine) unfortunately, attacks it from the wrong end, so more leaking but no real relief.Retaining like this is problematic for many kids (ASD and non-ASD) so your doctor should be able to give you some leaflets and stuff with advice/suggestions... getting some other (non-vimto) liquids in would really help - especially water. i know that won't be easy, but keep pushing even tiny sips if you can, 'cos that battle has gotta be easier than the other options :(

 

:D

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we had a girl who would get so backed up that she would explode poop when it just couldn't fit in anymore. she had lactulose, it didn't really seem to do anything. we got her drinking more, and put her in a warm bath every night and this sort of helped. the warmth relaxes the muscles so if hes holding it should help in the long term, but in the short term i think a doctor is in order to get whatever is blocking him now sorted. they shouldn't try anything invasive until all other options have failed, especially with a child.

 

oh and from another thread ive heard perhaps soaking him in epsom salts might help, apparently thats a fantastic laxative?!

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I sneak ds#2's lactulose in his morning juice and as long as he doesn't see me do it, he's fine with that!

 

Much sympathy for bowel problems!

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Hi Sandyn,

 

My daughter has suffered from chronic constipation practically since birth and is still on 5ml sodium picosulphate daily (she's 15). Although Lactulose is much gentler to give it never worked for her because it doesn't work like many of the laxative preparations - it basically draws liquid into the bowel and for it to work properly you have to drink quite a lot of fluid which my daughter never did.

 

She used to have regular stays in hospital due to being blocked right up - and even enema's combined with massive doses of sodium picosulphate would take about 48hrs before they would work. Many times she had tearing due to the severity of it - and this would obviously result in more pain in trying to go and then we'd have a vicious circle.

 

We found lots of warm baths (although sometimes this did mean she'd go in the bath) and also plenty of vaseline on the area - although I know it's much more difficult when they get older.

 

Milk/dairy has always been a problem for her also - she was on soya until 5/6yrs - and although she can tolerate it - excess can cause things to be worse (yoghurts in particular were really bad - and also too much chocolate - say at Easter/Christmas I can see affects her also).

 

Take care,

Jb

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Well took R to GP today, who prescribed movicol for children.

 

I am a bit worried about how quickly this stuff works, as R doesn't like using the school toilets as they are dirty. I would hate for him to have any accidents. But I don't want to leave it much longer just in case things get worse.

 

Any advice appreciated.

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Hi Sandyn,

 

Sorry can't offer any advice - my daughter was prescribed this once - but she vomited after about 1/2 cup and refused to take it again - and I think she had to have several sachets a day.

 

As for going to school loo's - I couldn't believe my daughter when she told me only last year that she's only been to the Comp. toilets once (she's 15 and in her last year now) and that was to get a tissue for a runny nose - and she only did it because she was so desperate. I asked her how on earth did she never go to the toilet and she said she couldn't because of the smell and how dirty they are.......... and she takes laxatives every day - I'm sure that holding this in is definitely adding to the problem which seems the same for your son......

 

Take care, hope you get some answers soon,

Jb

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Marcus won,t go at school either never has says they are dirty and is worried about being heard etc. He is the same on holiday and has to be cajoled into going.

Movicol for us has been a life saver and he doesn,t mind taking it surprisingly. We tried it when he was 4 and he flatly refused to even take a sip but has been on it for 4 years with no problems. He wouldn,t take senna due to the colour I had to sneak that into yoghurt and then glue the lid back down (how devious i was). He happily took lactulose for a while but then got feg up of it and it stopped working for us. We have also used suppositories/ enemas at times though only as a last resort.Hope you get it sorted soon .

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my daughter has suffered this problem for yrs takes 7.5 of picosulphate and 20 to 30mls of lactulose evey day and still ends up blocked up at times and spends time in hospital and has a phosphate enema not nice sorry got no advice but hope it gets better sooon

 

lots of love donnaxxxx

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We've had lots of problems with this, on and off. My son retains and it's a vicious circle -the more he holds on (up to five days), the more he retains so we end up with the bullets and runny poo scenario with horrendous behaviour. We tried lactulose and it made the problem worse as it gave him wind and made him less likely to go to the loo! For us, Senna was the best (prescribed by paed, but I think you can buy it?). We started off with a really low dose (can't remember what, but less than half the recommended for age) and just upped it until it worked. It was good because it takes about 8 hours to work, so we gave it in the morning and by teatime it would work! This avoided the 'school' problem. It was so predictable and easy to work into our routine whenever he started retaining so it broke the cycle. It could be worth asking about it?

 

Sue

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Ah, yes this problem. Our DS has always had bowel trouble from constipation in the early years to very loose movements from the age of 5, he's now 14 and still it goes on. When he was 6 we took a stool sample and a few weeks later had a visit from the enviromental health :o he had some long worded bug which causes loose stools. Anyway nothing more was done until recently where he has had a lactose intolerence test - negative and a biopsy - negative again, so last week it was back to head down toilet (old airforce resperator on) and taking another sample (put me off chocolate moose for a while :whistle: ) so we are awaiting results. He also does not go in school, sometimes comes home legging it through the house straight into said room. He is on Lomotil at the moment which does help a little, but still not sufficient. Did ask the consultant if he thought there was a link between Aspergers and bowel problems and he just laughed, oh well...

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My son has always had loose bowel movements with odd bouts of diahorrea, I suspect like some of you that it's something to do with diet, not worked out what yet though. I feel for your poor children, must be awful for them. :tearful:

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Hi,

 

I used to give my son Movicol and it was great. I gave it to him after school so there was no worry about accidents and now he only goes to the toilet to poo in the evenings - sort of trained his bowels.

 

We've weaned him off it now but it was a life-saver!

 

Eva

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It may be worth contacting the Autism Research Unit at Sunderland University. They have been looking into this for a long time and can do intolerence testing (was �60) last time I enquired. I was trying to get my doctor to pay the cost - but no joy so far, so I'm going to pay for both my boys to be tested - and maybe myself.

 

My eldest had severe colic and vomiting caused by baby formula, so I switched to soya which improved, but then weaned him on to yoghurts and milk at 1 year. By 2 he had severe constipation and "leakage". The first consultant just put it down to the autism "the brain not telling the body to go". J was also so easily engrossed in something, he just seemed to "forget" that he needed the toilet and would also wet himself. He has been on movical for years (nothing else worked). But over the last few months he has had fewer accidents and soiling.

 

His worst time was at about 5 years old. I tried to increase the dosage of Movical, but just the slightest increase had the opposite effect, and he made a huge mess in front of his class mates - and the school phoned me to say they couldn't clean him up (child welfare and protection etc. etc.)

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