Older child disimpaction

[BabygrowMama]

I’ve just joined, and from the few posts I’ve seen so far there seem to be a lot of younger children going through this and experiencing bowel incontinence problems. My son is 9 1/2, is there anyone who has/experiencing issues with older children?

[Robinia]

Yes, there are a few of us on here 😁My son is also 9 and half and is in pull ups following severe bowel impactions and lots of high enemas in hospital. My son knows I’m on this forum and he’s not alone with his bowel issues...helps me to feel saner and more calm too ☺️

Are you planning a disimpaction?

[BabygrowMama in reply to Robinia]

Hi Robinina, thank you for your reply. We started a disimpaction this week, we’re on day 4 now. My son is happy enough with what’s going on, but he seems to have completely lost his appetite all week, is this usual? He normally eats non stop but isn’t even finishing meals this week.

How long have you guys been dealing with this? What happens that causes an impaction again? I’m very new to this, and trying to get our heads round it all.

[Laundrymaid]

Hello BabygrowMama,. I'm here too, mother to a twelve year old girl and we did our first disimpaction last October (very successfully too!). Yes, the older group are small and select but have a hunt around, there are some really good posts here. - the Laundrymaid

[BabygrowMama in reply to Laundrymaid]

Thank you for your reply it’s good to know they’re are others of us around. I hope things are going well for you.

[M-bass]

Hi yes my daughter is 11. We are at a crossroads of what to do next x x

[BabygrowMama in reply to M-bass]

What’s been happening with your daughter?

[Robinia]

Hi yes I would say loss of appetite is very common as the movicol can make them feel very full. My son tends to have his just before bed now. He has been through phases of pouring it away when he’s not watched which he’s been doing this week so had to increase to 5 sachets tonight and let him stay up late with me to get it drunk!!

[BabygrowMama in reply to Robinia]

That’s handy to know a bout the feeling full, thank you. I hope you’ve had had better few days getting your son to drink it?

[smitten71]

My 9 year old son has been having soiling problems on and off ever since he was potty trained. He would hide behind the sofa and poo in his pants, hold the poo in rather than stop what he was doing. I finally realised it was not going to get better on its own so saw the hospital doctor. The upshot being a stomach full of poo! He's got damaged nerve endings so he can't always hold the poo in, so has lots of accidents. We went through the process of clearing him out which was horrendous, poo everywhere! We are now at the stage of trying to judge how much movical to give him to keep him regular, but not too soft otherwise poo carries on leaking out, and trying to get him to sit on the toilet after every meal. The doctor said it could take years for the nerve endings to repair themselves! I'm so cross with myself for not doing anything about this sooner, I kept thinking he would grow out of it. I can't see an end in sight as this weekend he's had loads of accidents, and I don't know if that's from too much movical or he's blocked up again! Any help from anyone who has been through similar would be most appreciated as it's all I think about.

[BabygrowMama in reply to smitten71]

Thanks for your reply, our experiences sound a little similar. We’ve been given a lot of the same advice as you, we are lucky we have a lovely incontinence nurse who’s coming to see us at home.

We have just finished the disimpaction, so I can’t give any advice or much experience yet, but I hope some one else is able to help. I know we were told it could take 12 months following to allow his bowel to return to normal and nerve endings to repair so I think maybe we just have to go with it and keep reminding our selves there is an end to it eventually.

[TobyDavidson]

Hi, We are in the same position with my 9 year old son. It started about 6 months ago and got steadily worse. We are one month post the disimpaction process and on a maintenance schedule, but I think we are actually going backwards. We have numerous messes now, which he seems oblivious to, both feeling and smell.

We put together a retraining program and shared with the teachers, who have been excellent, but worry that if we don't get on top of it now he will pick up teasing or bullying from school.

I think we will be back off to the doctor tomorrow as I think we may need some more help.

Sorry to not be able to give a more positive feedback on dealing with the issue in an older child, but you are certainly not alone.

[BabygrowMama in reply to TobyDavidson]

Thanks for your reply. I’m sorry to hear you’ve been having a bad time with it. It’s helpful to know any experiences though, good or bad so I appreciate you sharing. I hope you are able to get some more help with it. We have a great incontinence nurse who is coming out to see us at home. My son has autism and he really struggled with visiting the busy clinic for an appointment last time, so hopefully this will be better.

I completely understand the worry over bullying and teasing. Thankfully we haven’t had anything like that yet but Is always a concern. It’s good you have the support of the teachers too. I hope things go well

[CatDub]

Oh my goodness, I feel so relieved to find this thread! I am very new to all of this and simply don’t know what to do and feel very alone (as does my son). Back story for us - my son is 9 in July (year 4) and has always had wetting accidents. He was diagnosed with an irritable bladder, given oxybutanin and sent on our way about 3 years ago! The oxybutanin never really worked and then last summer we started getting occasional soiling episodes. Recently they have become more frequent. We are seeing a consultant at the hospital (but it’s a very slow process with months between appointments) and also a psychologist. I never believed he could be constipated as he went so regularly but now I’m starting to think he might be! Yesterday was a particularly low point...my son is very sporty and plays sport most days but that seems to exasperate this particular issue due to the movement! Yesterday I took him to the doctor who told us he prob has rectal prolapse and suggested we disimpact by giving 8 sachets of movicol at once. I had taken him off the movicol as it was making it worse and the social and emotional impact of having accidents at school was too much! I just need to find a free day where we can stay at home so I think we will do it on Sunday. Reading the instructions, however, it says to do it over a week! How do you do this?? Do you keep them off school for a week???? Does your boy also have bladder issues or just bowel? My main focus used to be on resolving the bladder issues but cleaning pee soaked pants seems like nothing compared to what I’ve had to do recently! My heart breaks for him - yesterday I took him back to school after docs - his teacher and school nurse have been brilliant and have even assigned him a ‘poo loo’ away from others as he had issues with doing it in the main toilets! Anyhow, yesterday he had a poo accident during drama before lunch...he didn’t tell his teacher or nurse and stayed in it, after school he had a tennis lesson (still with poo pants), I picked him up after tennis and took him to play in a cricket match (yep - he changed in to whites which he needs for today as well!!). In the car I could smell something and asked him if he’d had an accident which he denied and I assumed it was coming off the fields outside!! Got home (late) to discover the mess which had leaked on to his white trousers!! The accident doesn’t upset me but he stayed in it for over 8 hours?!?!?! Anyhow, this is your post and I’ve written war and peace...sorry but I do not know what to do either!!

[GiraffeFamily]

I have an almost 10 year old son who has been having pee accidents for years and years now. Thankfully no poo accidents. We're in the U.S. and it sounds like you have much better support and awareness in the UK than we do here! We did daily Miralax (perhaps the same thing as Movicol?) for over a year and it made no difference in his accidents, so we eventually stopped. If I remember correctly, we began it with some sort of a "clean out" - a higher dose of Miralax over a weekend - but I think now we didn't do enough. We were getting close to trying medication of some sort to help, but now that I've been reading "It's No Accident" I'm wondering if we should try a more intense clean out first. The odd thing is, he is able to stay dry overnight most nights. This didn't start until he turned 9 and we used a bed wetting alarm, but still...now he only has about 1 overnight accident per week. Does it make any sense that he'd be dry overnight but not during the day, if constipation is the root cause?