Hello,
My daughter has suffered with chronic constipation since birth. Being a ‘lock down baby’ she didn’t have the usual checks and was born passing unusually large, painful stools. We were always told that this would ease when she started weaning and introducing fibre.
Unfortunately, this was not the case. With hundreds of visits to A&E for incredibly painful constipation she was prescribed Movicol and has been on that for 4 years. It has proved unsuccessful, we disimpacted many times; introduced senna; bisacodyl supositories; enemas (which have now scarred her!) and sodium picosulfate.
We could never find the perfect balance and her constipation suddenly resulted in just incontinence. Both bladder and bowel are totally immobile, she feels she has no sensation and is having accidents hourly. We were finally (after 4 years of battling consultants at the local hospital) transferred to GOSH.
She underwent colonic manometry studies, anal rectal manometry studies and biopsies. Her manometry study caused question and thus prompted further biopsies (currently awaiting Hirschsprung’s results) and indicated that she has left colonic dysmotility.
We have been put on a regime of 1 Movicol sachet a day and 1 Bisacodyl tablet a day. She is having accidents 16 times minimum a day. The constant liquid stool has been happening for as long as we can remember and she hasn’t passed a ‘typical’ stool since September 2022.
We are at a loss as to what to do! We are now not dealing with constipation but now just chronic bowel incontinence. Our nearly 6 year old daughter has had to go back into pull up nappies and is mortified by this. It is impacting our whole families mental health and we just want to make it better for her.
Is this normal practice? How long can we expect this to go in for? What more can be done?