Constipation / X Rays

[Aoifedearg]

Hi

Find these forums hugely helpful so thank you. My 4.5 has chronic constipation and is on movicol. We have positive days and even a week where he can have bm every day and then set back where he starts holding and we increase the dose and then porridge texture poo and accidents. I read Dr. Hodges book and found it v useful specifically around x rays. My son has never had an x ray and I've never been sure if his impaction cleared. Wondering if anyone been the same and if they sought x ray for confirmation?

Personally finding this very draining and I know my son is too

[Buddy4]

Mine had an X-ray which diagnosed constipation and then a follow up because doc insisted she ‘had’ to be clear now with the amount of movicol she was on, and I was insisting she couldn’t be clear based on bed wetting and other indicators. Second X-ray still showed moderate loading, so still not resolved. I would definitely rate getting one. It gave us a clear place to work from. There is no point being on movicol if the sludge it creates just skirts around the stuff that is stuck on. I just don’t see that as solution personally and would prefer to persist to get as much as is reasonable cleared out, and only then go on maintenance movicol. However getting to that point is taking time and confusing!!!

[MinneyMouse]

Hi, we’re in exactly the same boat with our nearly 4 year olds daughter. She is still on 6 sachets of laxido every day plus senna and even had to have a ng tube in as she wouldn’t take the medicine. My daughter soils every day without fail but to be on those laxatives I don’t understand why she is still showing signs of being impacted soiling, bloating, bellyache, hardly eating etc. My head is boggled it just doesn’t make sense. My daughter has had two xrays but one was because we took her to a&e she was in agony and it showed she was completely full of Pooh and the second I had to really fight for they weren’t going to do it until I refused to leave and again showed she was full but they don’t do anything other than give her the 10 sachets of medicine and bring it down gradually I’m not sure if these things are working anymore she’s been on this for 14 months now and Also diagnosed with chronic constipation but she’s not getting any better at all. I hear you it’s really stressful and draining but we have to keep going for our little ones. What is the book you talk about I’ve not read it? Is it useful?

[Aoifedearg in reply to MinneyMouse]

It's called "it's no accident" and discusses issues chronic constipation, wetting amd bed wetting.

[Yaleamanda]

If you are in the UK you will be extremely lucky to get an Xray, they are rarer than rocking horse poo - pardon the pun. You really have to fight to get one, many people end up going down the private route to obtain an Xray.

[SallyandPaul]

Good morning. My daughter, who is now nearly 12, has suffered for nearly 8 years. She has had 2 xrays, the first of which caused her to become doubly incontinent for nearly two months because she had to stop medication for a week. After the second one ,where she continued some medication, she was prescribed peristeen, a colonic irrigation system. She has been doing this most days and continues to have one or two sachets of movicol. This works well but she is not cured yet. She also has an accident most days but has not had one at school which has been amazing,especially as she started secondary school last September.

[Aethawk]

We found that the movicol just made more liquid poo, it did not remove the impact ion, so we were given enemas and then picosulpate, my grandsons problem wasn’t holding his poo, it was that the muscles don’t work, so no amount of movicol was going to make a difference. The enemas are great, as they work in 20 mins, but grandson did not like them, so now we use picosulphate and of course plenty of fluids. We will definately not be returning to the movicol type of meds. I hope this helps.