Severe abdominal pain at night - is this normal??

[Moonlight81]

My 8 year old daughter has been diagnosed with chronic constipation. She has visited the hospital multiple times in the last 3 weeks with abdominal pain. She is now being treated for fecal impaction with Movicol and senna. She has had some bowel movements over the last couple of days - watery with some solids - but the problem is that her pain is very severe. Every night from around 7pm she begins to experience stomach cramps and pain that is severe enough that she can’t do anything at all and is in distress. She hasn’t been able to get to sleep before 1am for 4 or 5 nights as a result. The only thing that helps is watching TV and even then she’s still moaning and crying out in pain. Is this level of pain expected or normal in this situation? We’re going a bit crazy because we’ve taken her to A&E with this severe pain five times in the last few weeks and each time we feel like we get basically the same answer - hold your nerve and keep going. But the pain seems really, really bad. Has anyone had a similar experience? I’m wondering if the bowel is so severely backed up that something more radical needs to be done but I don’t know what that would look like.

Thank you all.

[Yaleamanda]

Sounds like you need to contuinue disimpacting. Give her some pain relief, hot water bottle, even a warm bath to help with the pain. What time are you giving the senna? Senna can cause stomach cramps, hence the pain.

[ERIC-Charity Partner]

Dear Moonlight81 , We'd recommend speaking to your GP or Health Care Practitioner about this pain. Stimulant laxatives can cause cramping and some pain, especially if the poo its trying to move along is hard. When disimpacting, NICE Guidelines recommend introducing the stimulant after two weeks on the macrogol laxative (movicol etc). this helps to ensure that the poo is sufficiently soft and can speed up a disimpaction. Try to make sure that your daughter is having a relaxed toilet sit 20-30 minutes after eating, feet on a step so her knees are higher than her hips. Make sure she has things by the toilet to help her relax such as books and toys, and some items she can blow such as bubbles, party blowers. Blowing helps to push the tummy down but it also helps to relax. Please do reach out to our Helpline if you need more information. ERIC

[GranolaSemolina]

Hi, how is your daughter now? We had the same issue with our 14 year old daughter for the past 8months and did not know about Disimpaction then. Her tummy also ballooned up with gas and was very painful. We would stay up till 4 or 5 in the morning most nights. We are now on day 7 and taking 12 sachets and today is the first day that she has not had pain, gas or bloating. She slept at 23:00. I would say keep increasing the sachets 2 at time per day. Our GP gave us Lactulose 10ml twice a day and she has not had any cramps with that.