Disimpaction: what to expect?

[rachelsf]

Hi there. After over a year of trying and failing to get effective help (or even an examination) from our GP we have finally received good advice from ERIC for our 3 year old daughter’s chronic constipation and we are starting disimpaction on Monday. I’m trying to prepare us all for this and this week have been using a reward chart to get her in the habit of drinking lots ahead of time, which is working well. But I am feeling very apprehensive and unsure of what to expect from the process. I have a few specific questions below, but if there is anything else you think we should know/tips you have for preparing they would be so helpful!

1. Is she likely to be in any pain/distress?

2. She is only just three and I don’t know how I am going to explain this to her to prepare her in a way she will understand - does anyone have any tips?

3. What should we expect overnight? She usually sleeps through and just poos several times in the day on her current low dose of laxido but I am guessing we should expect her to poo overnight during the process? How did you manage this in the overnight period? Did you find it disturbed your child’s sleep? For info, she is still in a cot/sleeping bag and wearing nappies as obviously the (constipation/soiling) have delayed toilet training . We also have a 4 month old so of course need to meet both their needs in the overnight period.

[sairthompson]

Hi, pleased you finally got the help you and your daughter deserve. So hard when you have to battle to be believed. My son was a similar age to your daughter when he started having difficulty. It took until he was 7 to be referred to a specialist nurse.

We did disimpaction over a half term and it went really well. He felt no discomfort and got to the toilet more than he didn't. There was increased soiling to begin with but this quickly passed once the poo got more runny. He never had any issues at night, so hopefully you will be OK too.

It was the best thing we ever did and although he still has laxido he does manage to go almost daily now with no problems. Good luck!

[rachelsf in reply to sairthompson]

Thank you so much! So glad your son has benefitted and it wasn’t too tough for him. To be honest in my daughter’s case I think it’s probably built up simply due to her not drinking enough, so I am hoping that once this is done it will start to resolve things now that we have a system in place for getting her to drink more.

[Pootime]

Hello, I expected to reach the rusty water stage of disimpaction much sooner. We (our recently turned 4 year old) had been had been at 8 sachets for almost 2 weeks but then he caught a cold which interupted proceedings. So back on 8 sachets of Laxido from today and looking for that elusive consistency. I've read it could take months - depending on how much old poo is in there.

I joined Movical Mummies on Facebook and felt happy to learn from other's experiences, but saddened to see just how many other children/families experience this. I had not heard about the condition before and assumed it was just us.

Good luck 🙂

[14crosstitch14]

To explain it to a child, i played a poo game with dolls and bears on the potty colour some paper brown. Chop them into funny shapes make it a game. Also my husband bought a doll that came with a potty abd the girls took their doll to toilet very make it all a little game. Theirs also a poo story online too. Plenty water try lots of fibre as for toilet training start slow and if you have a potty take her to toilet with uou. You can also get a toilet step and seat that fold up together that really helped both my girls too.