extreme constipation

So DD has had extreme constipation for 3 weeks. So bad that we had to do 2 suppositories and she also has hemmoroids (sp?) from pushing so hard. We have up'd her fiber, but then she complains her belly hurts (b/c it's full of gas) -- we eliminated white bread, white rice, cheese, bananas, etc. Anything that's binding basically.

We finally went to the doctors and she suggested that we keep her fiber up and give her miralax - it seemed to work for the past few days but today she is having another hard day. In fact we had to leave the mall play area b/c she was crying b/c she wanted to go home. She's pushing right now (in fact) and still nothing. I don't know what to do with her...I feel horrible and I can't seem to fix her or find the right balance.

anyone else have similar issues with their children?

 

:hug: Yes I've had similar issues with one of my DDs. We had a period of weeks last April that was just awful (coincided with a nasty stomach virus and potty training). I had to do several suppositories, went to the doctor several times, had to do 2 enemas (poor punkin) and then after 6 days are miralax she finally started pooping somewhat normally. We kept up the miralax for a couple of weeks after to make sure she was ok and wasn't afraid it would hurt. That was the worst part of the whole thing- she was scared it was going to hurt, it was hard and was painful, and there was nothing I could do to help her and make it all better. :grouphug:

Other things we did during that period of time- eliminated almost all dairy, lots of fruit and veggies, lots of high fiber foods, prune juice, and minimal carbs. We are still dealing with this as an ongoing issue. Her body is just prone to it, so we limit her milk intake (2-3 6oz glasses a day), and make sure she eats lots of fiber in the form of fruits, veggies and grains. We've also added one cup of juice a day, but unfortunately she doesn't really like juice so her sister sneaks it and ends up with watery poop :gah:

 

We have gone through this with one of my daughters. Thankfully we never had to do the suppositories but we did give her prune juice which helped a lot and miralax. It took us a while to get the proper dosage for the miralax to work but not give her the runs. My daughter had hurting poops so she would hold it in. Then when she got smelly and would complain about her stomach we would know it was time for her to go. So we had her sit on the potty and she would sit for over an hour sometimes since she refused to push it out (she would wait for it to fall out on its own). Over 4 yrs later we still have some issues from this where she still only goes every three days or so and she will sit for 15min or longer. I feel so bad for her. Keep up with what you are doing and keep giving her the miralax and hopefully she will get into the routine of going on a regular basis and it won't hurt her anymore. Give her a book or something to sit on the potty with (if she is potty trained) and just tell her to relax and hopefully it will just come out. My daughter won't push anymore since that's what makes it hurt so she just waits for it to come out.

 

I'm not sure about toddlers, but when our girls were babies Hannah got pretty constipated once. Our pedi told us to mix some apple/prune juice with dark kayro syrup (sp?). It usually did the trick! We used the suppositories too. Hope she gets better soon!

 

I use a probiotic with my twins and it works well for them. Not sure how it would work for a toddler, but it is worth a shot. There is different doses to give different ages and can be bought at store like wal-greens or CVS pharmacy. I get ours through our chiropractor.

 

We are dealing with this too. Logan is prone to it, but Christmas vacation really got him going (or not ). We've done suppositories and have been giving Pedialax as required. Once we got him home we got him back on his regular diet and things have slowly gotten better. The worst part was him being convinced it would hurt, so even after we got him straightened out he was holding it in until it was painful again. That part just took patience and sitting with him in the bathroom. Oh and candy, in the end we bribed him with candy to poop until it sunk in that it wasn't hurting anymore.

As for diet he's eating lots of broccoli and apples, very little milk, we've stopped cheese and bananas completely for now, he gets more juice and water than usual, I've switched completely to whole grain pasta and bread, and we've started giving him fiber gummies twice a day.

 

Our pedi recommended lactulose which I think there were other options and we chose the one which required less amount only 15 mls. The best thing has been to give it every day in the AM. We have tried prunes, she eats mini-wheats everyday, oats... but only the lactulose works. Lots and lots of water whenever you can. Pear juice, peach juice, pineapples. are other options. We limit how much bananas she gets.

Our pedi said at her age it can make potty training difficult if we don't give it every day or every other day. As a pp mentioned above. I hate to give it to her but we have exhausted every other option and this is it. There are also "bowel buddies" cookies often in the drug store at Walmart which I have put on the bottom of her oatmeal before.

Good luck

Heather

 

We eventually had to resort to Miralax with DD. I resisted it for the longest time because I didn't want to put her on a routine medication. The ped. kept telling me that in chronic constipation issues no amount of diet manipulation helped. After several months of diet manipulation, it became apparent that he was right. We kept her on the Miralax for about 6-8 months giving it several times a week and eventually we were able to stop. Now she poops with no problems! :ibiggrin:

 

My dd has the same issues and today was awful! She ended up not pooping for 3 days and finally today she went. However she also pushed out part of the wall of her rectum-- yuck! She is now on a half cap full of miralax twice a day and after having to push it back in twice, I'll do anything!!!!
Like the pp mentioned, when it's that bad the ped said that changing up the diet does very little. Good luck!!

 

I used benefiber with my dd, she was on it from the age of 1 or so up until she was about 3.5 yrs old, pretty much every day. Before that we added dark karo syrup to every single bottle. Any time I stopped the karo or benefiber, she would go back to having constipation problems We would use the liquid glycerin supps every day until we got her back on track, and would try again in a few months without using anything.

I'm happy to say she's outgrown it, her's are still pretty hard but she does poop every day. On a positive note, wiping her is a piece of cake, nothing every sticks to her butt!

:hug: I hope you can get it under control, it's horrible for little kids! :hug:

 

You know you might want to consider that she could be so backed up that the cycle will continue until she's "emptied out". The idea is that if they get impacted everything is hard, so you have to soften what's already there. Our GI always recommended a course of enemas and a very mild laxative to soften the hard poops and help get them out. Then, after empty to do daily miralax to keep them going. But honestly, if she's that bad you may want to consider asking for a referral to a pedi's GI for chronic constipation, especially since she has hemmorrhoids. They can give you specific instructions to help her until you get her going smoothly again.
My oldest DS had issues with constipation as did both twins. But the twins GI recommendations were by far better at eliminating the problem than ODS's GI.

 

Thanks for the advice ladies. I decided to keep her on Miralax moving forward until further notice. She ate a whole carton of raspberries last night so hopefully that will do the trick today with the Miralax and the 3 fiber gummies she ate yesterday. So frustrating!!!!

She does the same thing that many of you talked about -- it hurt her in the past so she says she pushing, but in reality she's pulling her little butt cheeks together and not emptying her bowels. And she gets very stressed out. And she complains that her belly hurts, and I think some of that is gas related because after she woke up from her nap yesterday she said her belly felt fine -- but then again, she hasn't pooped since Monday afternoon. I sure hope she goes today because we leave tomorrow (on a plane) to go out of town for 8 days. Wish us luck!

 

This is excellent advise. We too had the same issue with a kid full of poop. She was so backed up that it took 3 enemas to clear her out and then she was on Miralax for almost a year. Her diet is excellent, but she is just prone to constipation. Now at 5, she poops normally, but still have constipation issues so she sees a Peds GI every 4-6 months. She is currently on Miralax due to stomach pains even though she poops 1-2 times every single day. I would definitely take her to a specialist.

Best of luck!

 

We have to do Miralax every day. No exceptions and it's STILL a struggle! In fact, it started affecting Nic's bladder.. Went to doc today and we have got to get the stool out or he feels the urge to pee too often. UGH!

 

We don't have any issues but my DD2 loves the dried prunes, I cut them up and she gobbles them up like candy and they definately soften her stool. good luck.

 

Just an FYI about prunes or any dried fruit. With a constipated kid, dried fruit can actually make it worse because the body pulls water to hydrate the fruit. My daughter's Peds GI says for each prune, she needs to drink 4 oz of water.

 

We had these same issues with my one DD. It happened soon after we potty trained. We had to do supps and she ended up with fissures on her anus, it was horrible. We went to the pedi and she had an x-ray, the report was 'severe fecal loading'. Didn't I just feel like a horrible mom.

We had been doing Miralax off and on but once she would go, she would then leak in her panties so we would stop the Miralax thinking that she was empty (WRONG!).

The cure for us was two days of an oral laxative (dulcolax 5mg), a special cream for the fissures and a daily dose of a TABLESPOON of Miralax for the next 3 months and then we go for another follow-up. The way the pediatrician described it to me was that she was so full of stool that it was hardened to the inside of her intestines allowing the liquidy stuff to pass through but the hard stuff was still there. When the stool is hard on the walls of the intestines, the muscles that push the stool through aren't stimulated so they can't go properly. You need to get rid of that hard stuff that has built up (hence the oral dulcolax) and continue with the Miralax to keep her regular. So far (it's been just over a week), we have seen HUGE improvements, she is going daily and no more leaking in her underwear. He told me for as long as they have been constipated (for us about 3 months), it takes that much time to get them going regularly again.

Best of luck! Hope some of this was helpful.

 

We've never had anything as bad as any of these. But something that no one mentioned that helps for us is infant massage. You rub their lower abdomen and it helps get the poop moving. The person I learned it from described it as 'I love you'. First you draw and I to the left of their abdomen. Then do an L. So go from right to left across their belly button and then down where you did the I. Then you do the U. So you go up the right side of their abdomen, across the belly button and down the left. I usually do each letter a few times before progressing to the next one. Having lotion on their stomach helps. The masseuse I learned this from said they will poop within an hour. That hasn't been the case for me. It's usually a couple hours and it's still hard to get out, but it does get things moving. I think doing it regularly might help the intestines work. You might look up more on infant massage as this is pretty much all I know about it.