2 year old severely constipated

[sarah0487]

Hi, I don't know if you can help but I'm hoping you can.

I have a 2 year old little girl. She's suffering with severe constipation.

She has a balanced diet, lots of water, enough fibre. The problem is now a psychological one, she's withholding her poo because she knows it will hurt.

We've tried lactulose and are now on movicol but I just can't get her to take it. She only drinks water/milk which I've tried it in and now she won't have much of either - I'm sure she thinks I'm poisoning her! She can scream for hours and hours in agony before poo-ing, she just doesn't know what to do with herself.

She's so sad and in so much pain. Do you have any ideas? I've tried in lollies and jelly and she won't accept them.

The doctor has said we need to try and get her to poo easily for a while so she gets used to no pain whilst poo-ing but I've no idea how to get her passing the poo easily.

I'm beyond devastated that she's in so much pain and so sad, just want her to be happy again!!

I give her daily oranges/grapes, don't let her have banana which I know bungs her up.

Any ideas of what I can do next very welcome. I'm waiting on the Doctor to call back in the morning. thanks in advance.. x

[Bmcz]

Hello Sarah0487. So sorry to hear what your daughter is going through. Movicol tastes really awful so I’m not surprised your daughter is refusing to drink it. I stopped worrying about giving my 2.5 year old sugary drinks so I dissolve her Movicol in water and then top up with Orange juice. She would not drink it otherwise. Maybe you can try mixing it all up while she’s not looking and see if how she gets on with that. Good luck.

[Luella19]

Hello, how horrid for her and you. I used to make jelly with movicol. I used to make up the jelly mix minus the 62ml of water and then when the mix was cold I would mix in the movicol. I then put into small bowls and she would eat quite happily throughout the day and I never told her it had movicol in. Sugar free jelly an option too.

We also used to mix up the movicol and then top up with a bit of full cream milk and milk shake mix, this masks the taste quite well.

Alternatively lactulose in larger quantities, we found it caused a lot of wind but is easier to get to take.

There is also a laxative called sodium picosulphate which my daughter was prescribed at age 3 , not sure if ok for 2 year old. This was given to my daughter to do an initial clear out. My brother (a doctor) told me it's often used to clear people's bowels pre surgery so it's quite strong. Getting kids to have teaspoons of laxative rather than all the movicol liquid is easier sometimes.

Hot baths too helped get things moving, add some Epsom salts as contains magnesium which also has laxative properties.

Xx

[squizita]

Mine started movicol age 2. One way we found that she will drink it is ice cold water to make the sachet, then after that mixed with cold Alpro toddler milk (look in the UHT soya milk section, it has a giraffe on the pack- tastes like vanilla milkshake almost) and put into ... wait for it... a POUNDLAND baby bottle (wide neck, very flimsy teat). It's a comforting 'treat' with a cartoon each evening. I never let her see me make it! She knows a 'good medicine' is in there but not what it is.

Ours was just like this, and is now long term maintaining on Movicol as she was afraid, and she could not feel the sensations due to stretched guts. She's getting slowly better.

We found to prompt a poo when she was scared, once we had given her a clean out dose (for us it was 4 sachet a day for a few days, basically gave her liquid stools to clean the gut) and had her on 1 or 2 sacchets a day, we would give a spoon of lactulose or an Ellas Kitchen Prune or Mango pouch. For her, it made her go.

Every time she did a soft poo I would say "was it a good poo or a naughty poo?" and she would say it was good/soft and I would really play up that the nice medicine makes all her poo soft and nice and if she takes her medicine it will never hurt. I give chocolate buttons or mini jelly tubs for poo as a prize. She now links poo with a prize and talks about how if she tries every day and takes her medicine they stay good.

There is an app called "Poo goes to poo land" and a youtube song called 'toilet time is fun' which she seems to love, and they encourage them to keep going!

Be warned though if she is potty trained you basically have to start over, and training will be slow as the sensations can be numbed/ignored for months. Also mine is only not scared at home, so has accidents at nursery- in the last few weeks she has started to be brave and try there.

It takes ages but once the pain goes and you bribe them to go daily it becomes a grind/something to be on top of but less upetting as there is no pain.

[Tursty]

Hi sarah0487, I wish I could give you some help and advice but I'm replying to tell you, you are not alone! My son is 2 1/2 and I'm devistated having to watch the pain he's in! It feels like a long journey ahead. We give him 2 sachets of Laxido in orange juice which luckily he doesn't mind, he only used to have watered down juice for a treat!

Come back and tell us how you're getting on, loads of luck x

[gettingfitter17]

This might sound really basic but have you tried giving her prunes regularly? My daughter loved prunes and custard when she was at nursery.