Toilet training after disimpaction

[lyns08]

Hello

My son has just turned 3, he was severely constipated last year so we did a disimpaction treatment last October which cleared him out. He hadn’t yet been potty trained and my gp had said to wait for 3 months after the treatment to allow his bowel to get back to normal before attempting any training.

Since the disimpaction he is still either doing large soft poos or soiling still (but not the same type of soiling as when he was impacted). Every nappy I change has poo in it, it is like he has no muscle strength to hold any in, and they are always soft. I am constantly adjusting the maintenance movicol dose but it makes no difference.

I am going back to the doctor tomorrow as I am worried that he is still pooing so much but I wondered if anyone had any experience of attempting potty training while this sort of thing was going on? I don’t see how it will be possible to try putting pants on him as he will just always be soiling them but I also don’t want to just not try either! If anyone can give any advice or have experienced the same sort of issue I would be grateful to hear from you!

[WelshEms]

Hi lyns08, we had the same issue. My son was severely constipated since the age of 1. We are now managing the situation through 1 sachet of movicol and 2.5mls picosulphate. If we don't give this every day we go back to square one and he gets really badly constipated.

We were also told not to even think about toilet training but in February last year I decided to go against the advice because he was due to start school in September. We skipped the potty and went straight to the toilet when I had a week off work. It was the best decision. He hasn't been in nappies since, He has grown in confidence and is producing one stool a day. He is like a different boy and it's made such a difference to everyone's lives. He is just the same as every other child at school now and I've just taken his night nappies away.

What I've learned is mum knows best, trust your own instinct. Emma

[lyns08 in reply to WelshEms]

Thank you, it’s really good to hear that it’s all worked out in the end for you.

My gp has suggested we try Senna for a few weeks as well as the movicol so I am going to see if that makes some difference.

It’s nice to know you still managed to toilet train while dealing with it all though and I will hopefully be able to give it a go soon.

Thanks

[WelshEms in reply to lyns08]

I hope it goes ok for you. It's such a debilitating illness for all concerned. Picosulphate was the key for us. It's as if my son doesn't have the ability to push.

Also, timing. We used to sit him on the toilet after food and medicine with his tablet so he could watch his favourite programmes and we left him to it.

As soon as we toilet trained him the situation was far more manageable.

Good luck with it x

[lyns08 in reply to WelshEms]

Yes that seems to be the problem with my boy, where his bowel was so blocked up he now just doesn't seem to have the feeling to push anything out and it just seems to leak out constantly instead. I think Senna is a similar medicine to the one you use so fingers crossed it helps.

Thanks for all your help and hope it all continues to go well for your son too x

[WelshEms in reply to lyns08]

It may be that he's impacted again or the movicol dosage could be too high? Hopefully the senna will push things along. I could always tell by the appearance of my son's belly button, if it was outwards then he was ususally impacted. We also used lots of metanium to prevent nappy rashes as sometimes the liquid was so strong it burned his skin poor thing. Hope all goes well, feel free to message anytime x