STOOL HOLDERS? ENCOPRESIS? FRUSTRATED? This is a long entry... look at the pictures and you will know there is hope. This was our "BUZZ LIGHTYEAR POOPING PARTY".
If any of you have ever had a kid with stool holding problems, I want you to know there is hope. We have seen the light after four years of watching our kiddo suffer through this terrible toddler experience. My first advice to any parent is.... don't let your poor kid get constipated at all costs. Fiber, Fiber, Fiber and more Fiber in all of your kids diets. Whole grain pasta, bread, lots of fruit (apples, and bananas don't help) but plums, grapes, chili, corn and anything else you can find that has more than 1gram of Fiber is considered a significant source. And stay away from too much dairy.
OUR JOURNEY......
We switched as recommended by our doctor to whole milk at the appropriate age, although soon our kid became a milk aholic, drinking milk at breakfast, lunch, and dinner and inbetween, he even had it at nap time and bedtme. Soon it was too late, by 18 months he had a "hard poop"and that was the beginning of a long rocky road. Every time after that he would hide in the corner and cry because he didn't want the poop to come out for fear that it would "hurt". I am sure that sometimes it still did hurt, but most of the time we were able to keep it soft or so we thought, but he would still hold. We tried potty training thinking that would help, we would sit him for long hours on the potty reading him stories or even letting him watch a tv show, but each time he needed to poop he would squirm, cry, and ask for a diaper. So we started to give him suppositories to loosen the poop, terrifying treatment to a 1 year old. Then we gave him a laxative, hidden in his milk. One horrible night by mistake I increased the dose by 10 times the amount causing serious consequences and a trip to the emergency room at 2:00 in the morning. This was the catalyst that sent us to the doctor.
Doctor #1 suggested we give him "mineral oil". We tried to hide it in his milk. It didn't mix well. But it did mix well in "ice cream". So every night for nearly a year our poor little boy had a special "ice cream" mix before bed. During this time, he would poopin his diaper, but he was still holding it, and it was a very oily poopy mess. We tried everything to help him to get him to "push" rather than "sqeeze", but nothing seemed to help, but as long as we keep giving him medicine he wasn't able to hold it all in, which could be a serious consequence of resulting in the buldging and stretching of the muscles of the GI tract. After some period of time, we also were worried about the growth rate of our little guy, and slowly we felt that that the mineral oil wasn't helping as much as it did in the beginning. Mineral oil affects the absorption of vitamins and minerals, (our kid didn't have much of a chance to be tall, but the mineral oil wasn't going to help his chances either). So after much prayer and consideration we saw a new doctor.
First thing Doctor #2 said was, "oh we don't use mineral oil anymore for kids, it is not good for them for long periods of time". "Really?" She prescribe the miracle drug for all children with this problem. Miralax. We were grateful for the medicine. It seemed to do well at first with our son, the poops became soft again. He had to let them out, although he was still holding, and we decided to just keep holding off on the potty training. We were constantly changing "poopy" diapers with the dosage prescribe because now the poop would "leak out" causing a horrible smell, but at least it was still coming out. The goal with all stool holders, is get it out, so we just continued. Occasionally we we would find large deposits and would celebrate knowing that the poop was soft and he didn't hold, but they were few and far between. We did notice about this same time, that our son kept getting sick or so we thought. He would get this horrible cough that would last what seemed to be weeks. Just kind of a wheezy cough it sounded much like croup. He had the hardest time clearing his lungs for anything. We would take him in to see our doctor, "oh it's just a cold" the doctor would say. After one particular bad night of coughing and wheezing, my husband took him in to the doctor again. Our initial doctor was away, so we saw Doctor#3, they not only discussed the cough and getting a perscription of steriods for croup, but they discussed the "pooping problem". The doctor suggested doubling the dosage of Miralax, so our little guy could not hold in the poops at all, and then he gave us a referral for a specialist who saw kids with this particular problem "the pooping problem that is".
Doctor #3 said that if doubling the dosage, didn't stop the "holding" after a particular amount of time, we should see the specialist. We called the specialist as soon as we got the number. Unfortunately our insurance didn't cover them, and it was a minimum six month treatment and we thought we would be moving before the treatment would be ending. We passed, hoping that things would get better on the doubling of the dosage. The holding didn't stop, just more frequent diapers to change because of all of the leakage. Kids on Miralax can't hold their poops in. Good for kids except for the continuous diaper changes and the diaper rash, but it can make for long days for parents who need to change diapers constantly. The strange thing was the "cold" or "croup" cough got worse, we still hadn't put two and two together. Well,we didn't end up moving and the pooping was still the same, "holding, holding, holding" and parents stressing, stressing, stressing and more diapers, diapers, diapers.
Then we got a tip from my husband's cousin about a "natural medicine" called "Kid-e-Reg" it is a lower bowel formula used to strengthen and cleanse the bowels and they used for their kiddo with a similar problem. We decided to give it a try. At first the poops got a bit harder, and I was a bit nervous about changing from Miralax to something more natural. But the switch seemed to be profitable, he could still hold the poops in, but if we gave him the formula three times a day, it was soft and we started to notice the poops looked like "poops" rather than like "runs". One night my husband decided to try an experiment, we hadn't given the Miralax for nearly a month and that night our kid who hadn't been coughing and wheezing, although we hadn't noticed, woke up with what seemed like a serious lung condition where he couldn't breath at all. We put two and two together realizing that not only is he probably allergic to the main ingredient of Miralax polyethylene glycol or also called PEG with a number behind it, Miralax is PEG 3350 an enormous amount of the allergy containing ingredient. After research we found it is in also in toothpaste, shampoo, large doses are found in carpet adhesive, tylonel, benadryl, claritin and who knows what else. Since finding out, we have tried to elimate what we give our son that might contain it. And since then have not had any problems. The wheezing and coughing are gone. We have continued on "Kid e-Reg" for a about four months.
SUCCESS
This past month we tried once again to potty train our son who is now 4 and 1/2 years old. It has been a long six weeks. First starting with getting the diapers off to underpants, encouraging him to sit on the potty without force, encouraging him to pee, and then even getting him to poop on the potty on his own. We have used all sorts of bribes to help, army men for peeing, rescue heroes for pooping, trips to the dollar store for pooping, new movies for staying dry all night, and the latest was a "pooping party" for a certain number of poops in the potty. It was a very long month, we have seen huge sucesses. Some of the greatest moments have been when he has said "I can do this, it doesn't hurt anymore". Or "I'm going to go push this poop out right now". Now this isn't to say we are done, we are prepared for set backs, infact last night was his "Buzz Lightyear" pooping party, and after the party he had a peeing accident. But then he pooped what we call a "giant one" in the potty. He is finally taking control over something that has been so difficult for him. I have washed more underpants in the past six weeks then changed diapers, but slowly we are seeing that he is a capable pooper with no serious side affects from all of his treatments. And as a side benefit his little sister who is 21 months old, has learned how to pee in the potty. She doesn't want to poop yet, and that is okay with us, no forcing of the issue, but we are grateful for this journey and the patients that has come with it.
If any of you have ever had a kid with stool holding problems, I want you to know there is hope. We have seen the light after four years of watching our kiddo suffer through this terrible toddler experience. My first advice to any parent is.... don't let your poor kid get constipated at all costs. Fiber, Fiber, Fiber and more Fiber in all of your kids diets. Whole grain pasta, bread, lots of fruit (apples, and bananas don't help) but plums, grapes, chili, corn and anything else you can find that has more than 1gram of Fiber is considered a significant source. And stay away from too much dairy.
OUR JOURNEY......
We switched as recommended by our doctor to whole milk at the appropriate age, although soon our kid became a milk aholic, drinking milk at breakfast, lunch, and dinner and inbetween, he even had it at nap time and bedtme. Soon it was too late, by 18 months he had a "hard poop"and that was the beginning of a long rocky road. Every time after that he would hide in the corner and cry because he didn't want the poop to come out for fear that it would "hurt". I am sure that sometimes it still did hurt, but most of the time we were able to keep it soft or so we thought, but he would still hold. We tried potty training thinking that would help, we would sit him for long hours on the potty reading him stories or even letting him watch a tv show, but each time he needed to poop he would squirm, cry, and ask for a diaper. So we started to give him suppositories to loosen the poop, terrifying treatment to a 1 year old. Then we gave him a laxative, hidden in his milk. One horrible night by mistake I increased the dose by 10 times the amount causing serious consequences and a trip to the emergency room at 2:00 in the morning. This was the catalyst that sent us to the doctor.
Doctor #1 suggested we give him "mineral oil". We tried to hide it in his milk. It didn't mix well. But it did mix well in "ice cream". So every night for nearly a year our poor little boy had a special "ice cream" mix before bed. During this time, he would poopin his diaper, but he was still holding it, and it was a very oily poopy mess. We tried everything to help him to get him to "push" rather than "sqeeze", but nothing seemed to help, but as long as we keep giving him medicine he wasn't able to hold it all in, which could be a serious consequence of resulting in the buldging and stretching of the muscles of the GI tract. After some period of time, we also were worried about the growth rate of our little guy, and slowly we felt that that the mineral oil wasn't helping as much as it did in the beginning. Mineral oil affects the absorption of vitamins and minerals, (our kid didn't have much of a chance to be tall, but the mineral oil wasn't going to help his chances either). So after much prayer and consideration we saw a new doctor.
First thing Doctor #2 said was, "oh we don't use mineral oil anymore for kids, it is not good for them for long periods of time". "Really?" She prescribe the miracle drug for all children with this problem. Miralax. We were grateful for the medicine. It seemed to do well at first with our son, the poops became soft again. He had to let them out, although he was still holding, and we decided to just keep holding off on the potty training. We were constantly changing "poopy" diapers with the dosage prescribe because now the poop would "leak out" causing a horrible smell, but at least it was still coming out. The goal with all stool holders, is get it out, so we just continued. Occasionally we we would find large deposits and would celebrate knowing that the poop was soft and he didn't hold, but they were few and far between. We did notice about this same time, that our son kept getting sick or so we thought. He would get this horrible cough that would last what seemed to be weeks. Just kind of a wheezy cough it sounded much like croup. He had the hardest time clearing his lungs for anything. We would take him in to see our doctor, "oh it's just a cold" the doctor would say. After one particular bad night of coughing and wheezing, my husband took him in to the doctor again. Our initial doctor was away, so we saw Doctor#3, they not only discussed the cough and getting a perscription of steriods for croup, but they discussed the "pooping problem". The doctor suggested doubling the dosage of Miralax, so our little guy could not hold in the poops at all, and then he gave us a referral for a specialist who saw kids with this particular problem "the pooping problem that is".
Doctor #3 said that if doubling the dosage, didn't stop the "holding" after a particular amount of time, we should see the specialist. We called the specialist as soon as we got the number. Unfortunately our insurance didn't cover them, and it was a minimum six month treatment and we thought we would be moving before the treatment would be ending. We passed, hoping that things would get better on the doubling of the dosage. The holding didn't stop, just more frequent diapers to change because of all of the leakage. Kids on Miralax can't hold their poops in. Good for kids except for the continuous diaper changes and the diaper rash, but it can make for long days for parents who need to change diapers constantly. The strange thing was the "cold" or "croup" cough got worse, we still hadn't put two and two together. Well,we didn't end up moving and the pooping was still the same, "holding, holding, holding" and parents stressing, stressing, stressing and more diapers, diapers, diapers.
Then we got a tip from my husband's cousin about a "natural medicine" called "Kid-e-Reg" it is a lower bowel formula used to strengthen and cleanse the bowels and they used for their kiddo with a similar problem. We decided to give it a try. At first the poops got a bit harder, and I was a bit nervous about changing from Miralax to something more natural. But the switch seemed to be profitable, he could still hold the poops in, but if we gave him the formula three times a day, it was soft and we started to notice the poops looked like "poops" rather than like "runs". One night my husband decided to try an experiment, we hadn't given the Miralax for nearly a month and that night our kid who hadn't been coughing and wheezing, although we hadn't noticed, woke up with what seemed like a serious lung condition where he couldn't breath at all. We put two and two together realizing that not only is he probably allergic to the main ingredient of Miralax polyethylene glycol or also called PEG with a number behind it, Miralax is PEG 3350 an enormous amount of the allergy containing ingredient. After research we found it is in also in toothpaste, shampoo, large doses are found in carpet adhesive, tylonel, benadryl, claritin and who knows what else. Since finding out, we have tried to elimate what we give our son that might contain it. And since then have not had any problems. The wheezing and coughing are gone. We have continued on "Kid e-Reg" for a about four months.
SUCCESS
This past month we tried once again to potty train our son who is now 4 and 1/2 years old. It has been a long six weeks. First starting with getting the diapers off to underpants, encouraging him to sit on the potty without force, encouraging him to pee, and then even getting him to poop on the potty on his own. We have used all sorts of bribes to help, army men for peeing, rescue heroes for pooping, trips to the dollar store for pooping, new movies for staying dry all night, and the latest was a "pooping party" for a certain number of poops in the potty. It was a very long month, we have seen huge sucesses. Some of the greatest moments have been when he has said "I can do this, it doesn't hurt anymore". Or "I'm going to go push this poop out right now". Now this isn't to say we are done, we are prepared for set backs, infact last night was his "Buzz Lightyear" pooping party, and after the party he had a peeing accident. But then he pooped what we call a "giant one" in the potty. He is finally taking control over something that has been so difficult for him. I have washed more underpants in the past six weeks then changed diapers, but slowly we are seeing that he is a capable pooper with no serious side affects from all of his treatments. And as a side benefit his little sister who is 21 months old, has learned how to pee in the potty. She doesn't want to poop yet, and that is okay with us, no forcing of the issue, but we are grateful for this journey and the patients that has come with it.
