My 4 year olds chronic constipation!

[Mummy76]

My 4 year old daughter has suffered from constipation since she was about 6 months old. She is due to start school in September and still in nappies because she has overflow about 8 times a day, she doesn’t go for 2 weeks at a time and it is so traumatic when she does, she’s had 3 urine infections in the last 8 months and after being told “it’s her diet, try this, try that” I had enough so they finally referred her to a pedestrian who she saw at the end Jan this year. He gave her some tablets 1 every other day and a cream to numb her bottom. Well she has really struggled to take the tablets (and we’ve tried lots of ways to give it to her) or she gets sick. Today she is in lots of pain and brought her tablet back up. I just don’t know what to do she hasn’t been for nearly 3 weeks! Has anyone else experienced this, is there anything you can advise me to help her, I feel so helpless 😢

[MunchieMum]

Is she on a laxative? Movicol? Cosmocol? Lactulose?

[Mummy76 in reply to MunchieMum]

Hi, yes been on them all, they either make her sick or she has trouble taking them.

[MunchieMum in reply to Mummy76]

Do you get the tasteless one and hide it in squash or a smoothie? It honestly sounds like she's impacted and needs a big clear out 4 sachets a day working up to btwn 6-10). Then, once you've had a couple of days of brown water, returning to a maintenance dose of say 2 sachets cosmocol a day. This whilst upping fluids too. They should be on about 1L of fluids a day, spaced throughout the day to encourage the bladder to fill, stretch, and then wee. All this has made a difference for us.

[Mummy76 in reply to MunchieMum]

Thank you, I will give this a try. Much appreciated.

[nightingale12]

I’ve been in exactly the same situation with my 4 year old daughter. She was soiling up to 10 times a day but refused to wear a nappy so I was constantly putting knickers in soak or throwing them away. It all came to a head for us when she got sent to a&e by our gp as she hadn’t been for a wee for over 24 hours. It turns out she was so blocked up inside it was affecting her bladder. We carried out a disimpaction with Movicol which took quite a while as she was so blocked up. She hated taking Movicol so I didn’t let on she was taking it and hid it in things like chocolate soya milk, hot chocolate and pure fruit juice. We were also prescribed sennakot alongside it which really helped. Once the disimpaction was finished I kept her on a maintenance dose of Movicol and sennakot and we have a toilet routine in place where she sits on the toilet for 10 minutes 3 times a day. To get her to sit there we have a special bag of toys that she only plays with at toilet time. We’ve had a few hiccups since then but fingers crossed I think we’re finally getting there!

If you haven’t already, definitely give the Eric helpline a call. They were far more helpful than the paediatrician, doctors and health visitors I’d seen over the years.

Good luck!

[Mummy76 in reply to nightingale12]

Sorry to hear about your poor daughter and thank you so much for your advice. We have been in A&E this morning again with my daughter, she was in extreme pain over night, she also hadn’t had a wee for several hours it appears she has another water infection! So sent home with antibiotics and told to try more laxatives. She also had some discharge on her nappy which was not from her back passage so he gave me thrush cream! I’m keeping a very close eye on her over the next 24 hrs and if her symptoms get worse I will be taking her back to A&E but I will call the Eric helpline thank you.