Getting maintenance right for toilet training withholder

[Saramo3105]

Hello

My little girl is 2.5. she has been withholding for over a year. We've been seeing the surgeons in relation to chronic fissures.

My issue is whilst in nappies, it's been a long time since she has been withholding as I adjusted her medication to what I seen in her nappy.

However she took it upon herself to toilet train. Done fantastic, no accidents for a week. Then when she had 3 days without pooing I gave her senekot. The next day she has several accidents and emptying her bowels in her pants, I think due to the senekot. Now she is scarred and back to withholding. I need to get the right dosage for her as I can't just add in a forcefully empty that she is in pants. I've been giving her 2 laxido and her stools are too loose to give her control. She is back at nursery in a few days and I'm worried and would like to get back on track.

If anybody has any advice or suggestions about maintenance and toilet training j would be grateful.

Thanks

[Ste6106]

Hello, I agree with the poster above about the disampaction action.

Quick background, we’ve had a rough two years with our 5 year old with holding and soiling a lot due to chronic constipation and encropresis and he started school with it and we were beside ourselves we didn’t know what to do, we tried reward charts, bribes, iPads,blowing balloons on the toilet bubble blowing everything g we could, bought books then we contacted ERIC and watched a video about the movicol. Which changed everything.

Also

The hardest thing for us to understand was that our little one DID NOT know he was doing it, because he lost all sensation, once we got that it helped understand the condition

We found that we needed to up the dose to like around 8/9/10 sachets a day to get the backup cleared to get the consistency of the poo to like a gravy, for 48 hours then reduced the dose until the stools were loose, it’s a messy process. Then it was a case of reducing dose of movicol to find a dose suitable, we have also been prescribed sodium picosulphate which has helped, to find a suitable dose takes some finding a lot of trial and error. Also may I say how you make the movicol is important, after watching the video from ERIC we discovered the advice given to us about movico is rage was wrong from the local nurses, dissolve a sachet in at least 65 millilitres of water, double it for two sachets, we were told put it on yoghurt end in milk etc but it never helped, until we dissolved it in water then added that to whatever we wanted.

So we had our little one in pull ups to start school and a few accidents and trips into school to change him we were at our wits end, and thenhe slowly started to get things we had him on one sachet and he started to get into a regular time going, So we got pads for his undies which are brilliant by the way! Then he started going on his own, then Xmas came and had a massive relapse and with held, so over Xmas we had to up his dose again to get the gravy again! We did and only in the past month have we got a find the perfect dose again which is two sachets in a morning and 5ml of picosodiim sulphate, we saw a specialist who said it could take years for him to get there without movicol and the sensations fully returned, so play around with the dose between 1- 4 sachets a day it is trial and error, you will get to know when is too much and too little and it’s recgonising when they are with holding and upping the dose, for example we knew he was with holding cos the poo was like toothpaste is the best way I can describe so we knew he was withholding and that this was seepage rather than an actual poo, he didn’t know or feel he was doing this but because we knew we upped him and now after a couple of months at two sachets in a drink in a morning and his picasdium before bed, he’s now finally taking himself to the toilet, we monitor him and get a bit on edge if he doesn’t go every day we are waiting with extra mov but he’s gone a couple of days without going then has gone for a massive poo on his own, but this has been two years of stress, crying, questioning, and you do get angry before we got to this point,

I know so much how you feel and anyone else who reads this, I stress to you all And this forum shows this is a common thing and it does get better