Bowel movements

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I figured I should keep my issues sepperate so they would be easier for me to refference.

Chloe does not like to poop (better word). She is completely potty trained. What typically happens is that she holds back to the point it become difficult to make a movement due to her poop being compacted and hard. This creates a vicious cycle of her not wanting to make a bowel movement because it hurts: which is really due to the fact that she did not want to go in the first place.

We do our best to manage with proper foods and miralax. But it has been an ongoing problem for several years. It is not an issue with accidents. It is an issue with her comfort and by default her behavior.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

This is a common issue, here are some threads that may be helpful to you:

Constipation http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt72137.html
Yet Another Toilet Training Issue http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt213081.html
Hiding Bowel Movements: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt22058.html

There is more information scattered around as well that may come up with different search terms. Good luck!

It may sound weird, but if she has a favorite comic or books, you could buy one, that she only receives while sitting on the toilette?

hahaha Lots of kindred spirits around here. Its one of those "thats funny but not really" kind of things. Chloe's stool is so hard I have discarded the plunger and opted for a toilet snake. We had to send samples in at one point. And to get them broken up enough to fit in the sample tube it looked like a "I love Lucy" episode. Funny but not funny.

Sounds like most people have done what we are doing. Its just something that is hard to stay on top of.

Thanks for the links

Last edited by bssage on 13 Feb 2013, 11:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thats a new idea. Going to try that starting tonight.

Thanks

Our situation was never as extreme as you describe but DS went back and forth between constipation and loose stools. I started giving both the kids a probiotic supplement everyday and that has seemed to help even things out. It may not help much if you are already using miralax but thought I'd throw it out there.
http://www.kyolic.com/product/category/kids/
It tastes like vanilla ice cream so I have never had a hard time getting DS to take it. Another thought, is she drinking enough water/fluids?

Yep we did the probiotic's they were helpful but not enough alone to do the trick. And no she really only drinks juice and milk. I dont know if we can get her to drink much water. And I dont know where milk or juice fall in the "fluids" category.

BTW we had a very nice poop today. 30 years ago I would have never considered how happy a nice piece of poop in a stool would make me feel. Its a good day!

Have you ever gotten her tested for food allergies? I say this because I ate some very low quality processed food growing up (think a diet that consisted of white bread and hamburger helper numerous times a week-- stuff like that) and had similar bowel issues-- eating some stuff my body cant tolerate-- my bowels would constipate and freeze up for up to a few weeks, and if I ate some other foods and I would get diarrhea.

And not just I didn't want to poo because it hurt-- when I eat the things I have issues with (my latest example of failure includes lemon Oreos I have learned the hard way lol) it physically hurts to even barely move those muscles, hurts to poo, hurts to even bend over, it literally feels like your bowel is chock full of needles. For YEARS as a kid I had no understanding that it was not normal to feel that miserable-- growing up as a kid, I always felt that way. I acted out aggressively towards others,yelled at them and everything-- that was just a symptom of me projecting my misery. Nothing alleviated the pain except to stim, lay in bed with a pillow propping up the back and a heating pad. Even I feel better than this on my period, as bad as that sounds, and even at its absolute worst it still didn't match the bowel pain.

Because food intolerance/allergy was not on my pediatrician's radar (this time frame I am talking about was the late 80's early 90's), my childhood was stock full of laxatives, prune juice, grape juice (nothing really did the job all the time), suppositories, and I believe at one point in time my doctor had my parents give me a table spoon of mineral oil a day which in turn made me gassy, with stomachaches, and I crapped my pants with bubbles of orange goo and has to wear pads early as a result (no human should EVER have to live through the humiliation of this!). At one point in time I was also hooked on laxatives because nothing was moving (and too, the more the body gets used to laxatives, the more it gets lazy and reliant on them-- I figured that one out the hard way).

I don't have insurance right now to figure out what my exact food issues were/are (once I get insurance it's on my list of a bazillion things I need to do), but once I started eating decent foods over processed foods my body started behaving correctly. Also too it seemed to start getting better around the time i hit puberty so I wonder if there is some kind of hormonal aspect to it too or if that is just coincidence.

Although, however, even to this day, if I do eat the occasional wrong processed crap, I notice right away when my bowels start gurgling and making slurping noises, I feel like crap, and then I can't hardly crap on top of it all when it comes time. However, these days since I get more rounded diet, including decent fiber (and not the fortified trash you find in cereals-- fortified insoluble fiber gives me the craps), avoid the foods I know set me off, everything has for most part stabilized.

I hope my post was helpful. Btw, this comes from an adult with AS.

And that is one of the things that make this a particular difficult issue. It is not uncommon to be able to align difficult behavior issues to current bowel issues. Its such a clear line in fact that we have begun to include bowel issues with her daily note to school. I.E. Chloe has not had a movement in a day and may have issues today.

She is not a good "Flusher" which is kind of handy. We can check the stool to see if she went after bedtime or when we wernt looking.

I think we did have her checked for allergies when she was on the supplements. Even with the supplements nothing seemed as effective and consistent as the Miralax.