4yo lost feeling during horrid bout of painful constipation... should I be worried?

[Sewfarsewgood]

Son has been on movicol since he was a baby and has had approximately 4 bouts of horribly painful constipation in his life so far. We ran out of movicol on holiday 🤦‍♀️, so went without for a few days... and then went over a week without bowel movements after the first painful poo (withholding). We have upped the movicol as soon as we got home of course, and he has been a couple of times (after a lot of pain, only in a nappy)

But the last time he went this evening after being in horrendous pain for hours he suddenly started crying out that his feeling was disappearing in his body... not long before he managed to poop.

If I'm honest, I almost took him to A&E because of the pain he was in, even before he mentioned the loss of feeling. The pain has gone, and bowels have moved again since without the pain (still not wanting to sit on toilet though). I'm wondering if there's likely any long term damage to his nerves? Have any of you experienced this, and if so, what action did you take? Concerned I'll be judged as a neurotic mother!

[ERIC-Charity Partner]

Hiya Sewfarsewgood. This sounds like a really scary experience. Constipation can temporarily block our ability to feel what is going in on our bum. The bowel needs to stretch to fill to send the signal that lets us know we need a poo and if it is already stretched because it is backed up with poo it can't send this signal. Losing your poo signals can be deeply distressing for children however, the poo signals are not lost forever and they will come back once the constipation has been flushed out. All children who are constipated should be disimpacted as per the NICE guidelines and your GP or consultant will be able to advise you about this process. We also explain it a little on our website - eric.org.uk/how-to-treat-co....

Hope that helps and please call our Helpline today if you want to talk about it.