constipation nation
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| Thu, 06-15-2006 - 4:48pm |
Sylvia has been constipated for the past few days... Normally she's like clockwork in that area, no issues at all, but for the past few days she's been going much less than usual, and what comes out is small and hard. (How's that for being delicate about kind of an icky subject?) But she's been running around the living room now for an hour, GRUNTING like crazy. I keep asking her if she has to sit on the potty and she says "No." Periodically I check her pullup and nothing is in there... She seems happy as a clam, but I really am going crazy listening to this grunting!!!
Any advice on how to loosen her up? She's sadly on a "no fruit" jag -- normally she loves fruit but for the past week or two she only wants to eat raisins and bananas (neither of which is really helping matters). She doesn't like juice, and she's been drinking plenty of water. Can you think of anything else I can give her to help her along?
Jennifer

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Hm - I'm going to try that. I'd always avoided fruit leathers because the ones they sell at the grocery store seem like they're basically just candy. But the organic ones look good -- only 9 grams of sugar, which really isn't bad. Thanks!!!
Jennifer
Hi Jennifer,
Just wanted to say I can so relate to what you and your daughter are going through. Everyone has already posted all our "tricks." We'ver tried them all! What worked best for us were mineral oil and prune juice. Epsom salts might work too.
However, we had a more entrenched, severe problem. I hope this is just a one time, temporary thing for your daughter. Eric got into the vicious witholding cycle then just couldn't feel that he had to go until he had "a really big one" built up, which of course then made the problem worse. He would regularly go a week w/o a bm.
We had to get a gastroenterologist involved, who now has the situation under control. Turns out he stretched his colon and now we are tying to make sure he has a bm every day with a combo of prescription stool softener and some behavioral modificaion. I wish I had taken Eric to the gastro sooner. I kept trying natural things, which would work temporarily, then he'd get back into the vicious cycle.
So I hope she will be more comfortable soon. But if this becomes a pattern, as I hear it can happen with our kids, don't hesitate to get a referral from your pediatrician for a pediatric gastroenterologist. It turned out to be as important for Eric as ST or OT, odd as that sounds, bc we noticed his behavior got worse the longer he was constipated. Once he became regular, he is much calmer and happier.
Good luck! I'm thinking of you both!
Katherine
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