Disimpacting 4 year old: Hi I've been told by ERIC to... - ERIC

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Disimpacting 4 year old

Hannah1589 profile image
14 Replies

Hi

I've been told by ERIC to give my son 4 sachets movicol a day for 4 days to try and clear him out. Can anyone tell me what to expect? Wondering at what point to expect lots of poos, he has his 4th birthday this weekend so timing isn't great but need to try and get this sorted before he starts school.

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Hannah1589
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Yaleamanda profile image
Yaleamanda

4 X sachets per day won't clear him out, you need to work up to 8 sachets, stay there until you reach watery stools with no hard lumps or old poo, once there remain for three consecutive days before you start reducing the doses down by one sachet every three days until you reach a suitable maintenance dose to stay on.

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bornready.uk/blog/the-mecha...

There is lots of information that you may find helpful on the Bladder & Bowel UK website at bbuk.org.uk/bowel-resources/ The leaflet that may be most useful at this stage is the one at bbuk.org.uk/wp-content/uplo...

BeeBeeBuzzyBee profile image
BeeBeeBuzzyBee in reply to Yaleamanda

Hi Yaleamanda. What experience or qualifications do you have to suggest that the advice from ERIC isn’t quite right? You reply on a lot of threads and always suggest disimpaction, so I was just wondering of your experience and/or qualifications. It would help me understand from where you are coming from. 🙂 Thank you.

Yaleamanda profile image
Yaleamanda in reply to BeeBeeBuzzyBee

No qualifications but they haven't actually given you the correct method of disimpacting eric.org.uk/pdf-a-parents-g...

Hannah1589 profile image
Hannah1589 in reply to Yaleamanda

Thanks have seen the full ERIC guide to disimpaction and listened to their podcast. I’m going to up the dose and see how we get on. Think the suggestion of 4 for 4 days was a bit of a compromise due to not having much time before starting school and because he was doing ok not that long ago so maybe he isn’t very blocked up… but I think we need a higher dose so I got up to 7 today and will try at similar dose tomorrow and see what happens.

Le15 profile image
Le15

They just get really runny poo and chances are he won’t make it to the loo. Probably the day after the first dose of 4 sachets so just keep spare clothes handy and a bag with wipes, gloves etc just in case it all comes out while you’re away from home… although you might not want to go too far!

We disimpacted my son once and didn’t get to brown water like all the guides recommend… we had to do it again 3 weeks later. If your son is soiling and you are trying to disimpact him it is worth really going for it with the movicol so you don’t have to repeat the process too many times. I get why you have been told 4 movicol a day by Eric but do read the guides and movicol website too because we had to give 3,4,6,6 over 4 days to really get to brown water. We have then moved to a maintainanace dose of 2 movicol a day and a post meal ‘toilet time’ and that really seems to have helped not only shift the blockage but getting my son to stop withholding

Hope that helps and good luck

Hannah1589 profile image
Hannah1589 in reply to Le15

Thanks for the advice. Think we need to up the dose as we got up to 6 sachets today and no watery poo yet - they just look like ideal poos to be honest and he's actually been doing them in the toilet. I do think he's cleared out a bit as we are not getting the really stinky leaky poos in his pants that we were having before but I really want to make sure he is fully cleared out before he starts school on the 8th - it doesn't feel like much time to get this sorted. Any tips for post meal 'toilet time'? Always found this really difficult, currently just letting him watch tv on the ipad. He is very keen to do stand up wees and very stubborn when it comes to whether he will sit down. Also won't be easy to get him to do this when he's at school.

BeeBeeBuzzyBee profile image
BeeBeeBuzzyBee

I had concerns about my son and spoke to a nurse at my GP surgery and she invited us into the surgery so she could have a feel and listen to his tummy yesterday. I don’t know if your surgery is the same or maybe you feel another opinion might be confusing. I’m going to try the nurse’s suggestions for our son for a week or two and then have a think as to if we’re on the right track or not. I really hope in the future all avenues give us parents the same advice so we can feel more certain that we are doing our best for our kids. I’m sure you’re doing a great job though 🙂Good luck for the weekend.

BeeBeeBuzzyBee profile image
BeeBeeBuzzyBee in reply to BeeBeeBuzzyBee

Sorry, in hindsight my message probably added to the confusion. I just meant to say our surgery do face to face appointments now.

Hannah1589 profile image
Hannah1589 in reply to BeeBeeBuzzyBee

Thanks. I'm going to give this disimpaction a try and see if it helps. If not I'll definitely go and see the GP. It is so frustrating that everyone says something different isn't it. I've been trying to just stick to what ERIC say as feel like they are the experts.

Hannah1589 profile image
Hannah1589

To be honest this is all rather confusing. I've listened to the podcasts about disimpaction on the ERIC website. The ERIC nurse did say to do 4 sachets for 4 days, I think because she knew I didn't have long until my son starts school so it was a compromise. I'm thinking it's not enough though. I got off to a slightly slow start as didn't want to over do it with his birthday party, but yesterday he had 4 sachets and today he's had 6 so far... his poos are actually much more like ideal poos and with a lot of encouragement he's been doing them in the toilet- they are certainly nowhere near the watery poos I was expecting. I guess this means I need to increase the amount of movicol?

Problem is I don't have much time as he starts school on 8th Sept.

Le15 profile image
Le15

You know I think you are almost there - one more day with 6 or more and the watery poo will come and then you just got to 1-2 movicol a day to keep things moving. His poos will go back to normal almost as soon as you stop the movicol so plenty of time to properly disimpact before the 8th.

Also may be overkill but I’ve found these books so helpful, particularly ‘it’s no accident’

Children constipation books
Hannah1589 profile image
Hannah1589 in reply to Le15

Thanks, that’s very encouraging, I really do hope this works! Thanks for the book suggestions too

Hannah1589 profile image
Hannah1589 in reply to Le15

Do you know how watery we should be aiming for to know disimpaction is complete? Think we are like type 6 on the Bristol chart - it is still lumps but watery too. Should it be entirely watery with no lumps at all? We have managed 7 sachets the last two days, don’t know if I should increase it more?

Mum0 profile image
Mum0

Thanks for the book suggestions. I’ve already ordered the middle one - is it worth getting the other two as well or are they saying similar things? Also worried about reading conflicting advice and ending up being equally at a loss about what to do!

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