Son 'saves' his poo causing regular soiling

[Ned6]

My son is 6 years old and has struggled with soiling ever since he has been potty trained. He comes home from school most days with poo in his pants, we have asked why he won't go at school in which he responds that he is saving it, kids are calling him stinky and it is breaking my heart. Doc has ruled out anything wrong with his digestive system and told us to sit him on the toilet 3 times a day and discharged us. We are at our wits end as it does not seem to be getting any better. I'm really hoping that there is someone out there with a similar problem that can give some advice as everything I read is geared toward constipation and that has been ruled out.

[Jellyfish0]

Have you read Poo Goes Home To Pooland? If not, it could be worth a try.. and talk to him about how important it is to send poo to pooland down the toilet.. is he only doing this at school? ntw.nhs.uk/content/uploads/...

[JamesParkin]

You could try reading my short blog with him for children who soil. This tells my own story in simple language of how I avoided using the toilet and messed my pants, designed to discourage kids from withholding their poo:

theboywhopooedhispants.blog...

[Elisa007]

Hi, my son is same age with similar issues. Have you a children’s continence team in your area? You need a referral from your GP, maybe worth seeing a different one, ours was useless too, just saying he would grow out of it.

I kept pushing and eventually after waiting over a year we saw a Paediatrician last year. Got given some medicine to make him go to the toilet (sodium picosulfate) and paediatrician apologised that GP didn’t take me seriously. Damage could take 2-3 years to put right as bowel overstretched.

School need to be doing more, ours have become more supportive but only due to me pushing them and new head. Good guidance on ERIC website and my son now goes to a separate toilet away from others where he is given privacy and has spare clothes/wipes/pants if needed. Staff do supervise him. Speak to your SENDco or Headteacher.

That said, it’s ongoing and a battle at times but you’re not alone. It’s frustrating and heartbreaking, hope things improve for you, fingers crossed.

[Ste6106]

Similar to the post above

Our boy of six has been withholding, he has encropresis. He is managed on movicol and picasodium sulphate, we have to up his doseage when we spot him withholding and soiling, it took us a long while to figure out his maintenance dose, what’s the soiling like? Is it a mark or a lot?

When ours withholds he does so makes a mark ends up repeating and gets consitipated. So we need to disimpact, but then his bowel has stretched so he doesn’t feel it and soils. At the minute we’ve got to a stage where he indicates when he needs to go when he’s playing or such and we tell him to go and he goes and does what he needs to.

It’s taken years of getting to this point and finding a workable dose, which stops him withholding,

The ERIC helpline was a blessing, and we had discovered we had been administering movicol wrong due to wrong advice, we were told you could put into yogurt and drinks but we were not dissolving into water first. Then adding into things,

We send changes of underwear to school and the teachers are aware of his situation and they can generally notice when he’s had accident and discreetly ask and encourage our little one to go toilet either to try or to change they have been understanding throughout.

[Wagamama]

Have you tried eliminating things from his diet? My sons soiling was caused by wheat , milk an sweetcorn intolerance which there is no test for. But I was at my wits end as his consultant after lots of tests suggested it was behavioural! I had to try something as I knew it wasn’t behavioural so I removed it from his diet and it completely cured him! Couldn’t believe it.

Just throwing it out there... hope you get the help you need....