Anyone else hold in BMs?

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Registered: 10-09-2004
Anyone else hold in BMs?
4
Fri, 11-18-2005 - 11:48am
For a few months now, my son holds in every BM to the point he becomes sick. He will eventually start vomiting etc. His has been losing a little weight, and his appetite has gotten terrible. We go to a GI in another week but I was just curious how common this is!
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Registered: 03-27-2003
Fri, 11-18-2005 - 3:34pm

DS holds BMs to the point that they actually start to come out by themselves and he makes a little mess in his drawers. He used to just go in his pants, but now he just holds it and holds it. We can tell when he's doing it so we make him go to the bathroom until he goes and gets it over with. We put sitting on the potty into his nightime routine. If he tries for 30 seconds then he gets a check on his chart. He gets checks for other things like brushing his teeth, putting away his clothes...etc. If he gets 35 checks for the week he earns an allowance ($3) or something else. Last week was a movie, this week he wanted to go out for ice cream.

For Sam, he just doesn't like to stop what he's doing at the time to go. And he doesn't like to go in public places. *And* he doesn't like the way it feels AND he used to get really really really constipated and it just plain hurt to go and he remembers that. So having him sit nightly gets him to go when he needs to go so he isn't holding for days on end until he just can't anymore. And he realizes how easy the clean up is if he just goes to the potty; no cleaning underwear, changing clothes.....etc. Lately he's been going on his own in the afternoon. When he does he gets his check and he doesn't have to do the extra sitting at bedtime.

Potty training was tough for us here. I'm hoping DS#2 is a bit easier.

Good luck and let us know how the GI appt goes!

Chrystee

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Registered: 01-19-2005
Fri, 11-18-2005 - 4:29pm

You know, I think this is pretty common with our kids, unfortunately.

DS does exactly the same thing as Chrystee said her son does. We also use a reward method, which for us is a "Las Vegas display" in the bathroom of what he will win if he does a bm in the potty, which is a "golden Thomas" tank engine, just to play with right after he does it, and the right to watch the accompanying video. He only gets to see this video and play with the train if he does the bm.

This has worked to get him to tell us he has to go, although we find he either has to sit for an hour, or has to rush to get there in time. We still have accidents in his pants when he has to rush, and although he will do a bm at school, he resists going in public restrooms still. But this is a big improvement for us from witholding for days then having painful bm's.

When we realized he was witholding, our ped suggested giving him mineral oil each day, so he had softer bms. We first rewarded him for "doing it" in the bathroom, with his pants on. Then we rewarded him for doing it sitting on the toilet, with his pants on. Then for doing it with his pants off etc. After this final stage, we made a huge deal, and he seemed proud of himself. It took a long time, but at least now he's not witholding or doing it in his pants all the time.

Although we're urine trained and getting much better at bms, it's not quite there yet.

You are definitely not alone. I hope the GI appt. turns out ok. I know how worrisome this is.

Katherine

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Registered: 01-22-2005
Fri, 11-18-2005 - 6:47pm

Oh yes. I remember those days well. Not fondly, but well.

We did the laxatives, the enemas and the oral supposatories...this is what a Physician's Assistant had us to. When we finally got to the pediatric GI, she was really angry that DS had to go through all of that trauma. She put him on Miralax until the blockages were passed and then we gave him Senekot in his milk for quite a while. We had to up his fibre intake and used Citrucel also as he was a very picky eater/

He had what is called Encopresis. He withheld to the poing of soiling his underwear and his colon stretched to the point that it took months of regular bm's to get it to shrink. The doc was very relieved when it did shrink as he would have had to have surgery to correct it.

*sigh*

We rewarded him with a sticker on his "Poop Chart" in the bathroom everytime he would sit on the training potty and have a bm with a pull up or diaper on. Then he got to the point where he would have a bm in the training potty. We transferred the training potty seat to the toilet and gave him the choice of leaving his pants on or taking them off until he was comfortable on the toilet. Eventually he get the hang of it.

We still have to remind him. He is 9. HE finally learned how to go for the most part on his own at about 5 1/2 years old.

Be patient. It takes tons of time.

Hugs, I know what you are going through.

Crystal

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Registered: 10-13-2004
Sat, 11-19-2005 - 3:27am

My DS is now 8 and he holds on for days. Just like in the other replies, he finally goes by the time he's getting skid marks in his undies. At home, we used a reward system to get him to go to the toilet. In our case, it was a favourite type of sweet. The ped recommended that the treat be something that is given at no other time for no other good deed, otherwise it will loose it's potency.

As far as holding on so long that he vomits, that happened when we were on holidays. He couldn't get his head around the fact that he could use the hotel toilets. We had to end that holiday early...but solved it for future holidays with a social story. "when I go on holidays, I need to do a poo. I can do a poo in the holiday toilet......"

These days, when we are packing to go away, he will announce "I do a poo in the holiday toilet". Even if his preferred (downstairs) toilet at home is out of order, we can now persuade him to use the upstairs toilet by calling it a 'holiday toilet'. In his mind, a 'holiday toilet' seems to be a toilet that you use when your usual one is unavailable.

Lastly, if he needs to poo and the only option is a stinky, noisy public toilet...forget it. He'd rather hold on to the point of getting ill. (can't say I blame him)

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