My son is soiling himself daily is it constipation or could it be a medical issue?

[Holly247]

Hi my son who is 5 and half years old is constantly soiling himself, he has had this problem for nearly a year now, when it first started happening he was in foundation and they put it down to laziness and being to interested in the activity he would be doing at the time as time went on it did stop for a little bit. However when he started in year 1 it got progressively worse to the point he doesn't even know he has done it as I would ask him why did you not go to the toilet? his reply would be I don't know or I didn't know I was doing it. I have spoken to a health visitor and she was really helpful with giving me this website and keeping a log of his fluids. I was just wondering if anyone else's children have the same problem as my son and any advice would be much appreciated.

Thank you X

[Jj04]

Hiya I could wrote this post myself. Like you I'm so stressed out my son soils himself 2 to 3 times a day. The doctors just tell me to give him laxido. Like your son my boy tells me he doesn't know he doing it. My son got a speech delay so im don't know what to do next. I've asked to for jay to be seen by a pediatrician but I keep getting refferd to a toilet team. This as been going on for over a year. Sending my love to you and your son I so know how you feel.

[Yaleamanda]

Have you disimpacted him? Sounds like you need to. You can follow the Eric guide on this.

[Holly247 in reply to Yaleamanda]

No I haven't but I will have a look on the guide thankyou X

[G288]

I have the exact same problem with my son who is 9 next month,it has been going on for years on and off,he’s has blood tests, scans which were normal, paediatrician just prescribed laxatives. Really don’t know what to do , have no advice just to let you know you’re not alone x

[Holly247 in reply to G288]

Thankyou for replying it nice to know I am not the only one now as I always used to feel other parents would judge me of I spoke about it. I hope you and your son will get some answers soon X

[G288 in reply to Holly247]

I know what you mean, I don’t think others fully understand the problem or realise what a battle it is. Xx

[Littlerabbit100]

I could have written this too, my son is 6 1/2 now he’s on lactulose for constipation and we still had this. We’d been seen by a paediatrician and they said exactly the same about just getting distracted and not noticing. We have just seemingly turned a corner on this. Our big thing has been getting the water in take right and the problem was he wasn’t drinking at school and despite my pleas for help they weren’t.

He now has a 500ml bottle with lines on it for morning break, lunch, afternoon break and end of school is the bottom of the bottle. We make sure he has a cup of water before school, one at after school club and one with dinner, that gets the 1-1.3 litres required into him in a gradual way and it’s turned things around. It’s early days but he’s also starting to care about keeping this going where before he didn’t seem to.

[MunchieMum]

Water is EVERYTHING! Hence getting school on side is so important (and so difficult it seems).

[Holly247 in reply to MunchieMum]

I totally agree no matter how much I try and get them to encourage him to drink his water his bottle it is still full when I go to pick him up I have even tried putting juice in his bottle to see if he just doesn't like drinking water, and it made no difference his bottle was still full X

[MunchieMum in reply to Holly247]

Urgh. I've so been there. Try introducing rewards for him for drinking. As for school, what seems to have made a difference for us is getting the teachers on side, but also having a meeting with the school, to explain the importance. I got our health visitor to write to them (but that didn't make much difference). I've also written to the Head indicating that I would get our GP to write to the school board of governors if things didn't improve (hence the meeting). 😁

[Littlerabbit100 in reply to Holly247]

This was our problem too, see my comment above about putting lines on my sons bottle. Without them I think he was totally overwhelmed by the amount of water he was supposed to drink. Breaking it up into smaller chunks lined up with logical points in his school day helped make it less overwhelming.

He does also get rewards for drinking as part of a reward scheme we have set up with him. He had a vívofit junior watch and we have various things he has to do each day (make his bed, clean his teeth, do his reading, drink his water). Each thing gets a coin (or coins) which build up to a reward (typically a book he’s chosen) when he reaches 100 coins.

[DPLT]

Yes! Our son also 5 had been soiling fir years! Turned out he was chronically constipated and the soiling was overflow. He never knew when it had happened. We had to fight to get the help and support. We are now lucky enough that he is now under a fab paediatrician who specialises in bowels and well on the way to recovery. We knew something wasn’t right and in the end asked to be referred to another hospital. Good luck

[Holly247]

Thankyou for all your comments and advice I'm so glad we are not the only ones having this problem with our son hopefully his Dr can help and we will push for answers X

[Yorkiegi]

My daughter is almost 4 and has had this for almost 2 years and it has been down to her being chronically constipated and then is not aware of the sensation of needing the toilet so soils regularly. We have finally been referred to a consultant and just completed disimpaction 2 weeks ago and she is now on a maintenance laxative dose to try and keep things moving. It is so hard and stressful and I never really understood that she had no control over it and since then it has made me understand it all more and feel like finally we are getting somewhere. Watched that video on here ‘through my eyes’ and cried my eyes out as it has been her life for the last 2 years. This group has been great with advice and support because before I came on here I really felt we were the only ones dealing with this issue. Hope everything works out with your little one.

[Wagamama]

Hi, this is my story too but when I took my son off milk and wheat along with banana and sweetcorn, we saw drastic improvement! Huge! He's still not perfect and has tiny accidents every now and then... But sooooo much better than the 10 or so leaks he had a day!

It's worth a shot! Drs had no answers or suggestions. It was purely because I was at the end of my tether that I gave it a go. So glad I did!