4 Year Old Constipation

I haven't been through this myself, but a girl that I work with is going through the same thing right now. Her son is 6 and recently has started pooping in his pants...they took him to his regular doctor and finally after nothing was helping they took him to a pediatric gastroenterologist. That doctor said that he was absolutlely full. He was holding it in when he had to go which actually caused damage to his nerves, so he didn't even feel when he had to go or even when he was going. They put him on an adult dose of stool softner and a laxative...it was a very messy week or week and 1/2. The doctor told her it could be 6 months to a year before he gets full feeling back to know when he has to go. It's only been 3 - 4 weeks now and she said it is getting a little better...they still have him in pull up's for the time being because he still seems to have accidents at school, but when he is home and they can remind him to go, he seems to be getting a little better. He has even had a couple of times where he actually felt it and was able to get to the toilet in time. Good luck to you.

This could be encopresis, and if it is--he cannot help it.

When she was 3 yrs old, my daughter held in her poop for days at a time because she was "scared" to go. We were also concerned that her body would not recognize any more when she had to go. The doctor said to give her Miralax, which did a great job. It's clear and tasteless, and we would sneak it in her chocolate milk. Apparently it's not harmful to use for an extended period. It took a few months to get this straightened out. But, of course, ask your doctor!! Good luck.

I agree with the answer of encopresis. It starts as a psychological issues (being afraid to go likely after a hard stool) and then turns into involuntary holding and "leaking". If he's constipated, it will certainly affect his behavior. I know you posted this in April, how is he doing? I've been through this too...if I can help, please let me know. My son ended up having an allergy to wheat/gluten and once we eliminated this, he was an entirely different kid!

I agree with the Miralax. It's just a softner to make the exprience less stressful for the child, and no harm in using for a while. Talk to your Dr. Good luck

My youngest son had this problem for several years. He had enimas, suppositories, and tried to increase his fiber. But nothing worked like Miralax. We had been to the doctor several times before ( seeing the PA) but when we saw the DR he diagnosed it as fecal incontinence in children. (You can google that and it will give you some reasons as well as ways to help your child.) My son is now 13 and has had bouts of this for 6 years. You have to be patient, it can be a long process. Good Luck, but do google fecal incontinence in children to see if the symptoms match.

We dance around the constipation with our daughter. Mostly, as our doc suggested, to never do enemas -- keep with the fiber, lots of liquids, limit high fructose corn syrup-high starch foods.

We've been battling this since Oct with my 4y.

She'll go for days with no BM. We tried the suppositories (broke our hearts), Miralax, Ex-lax per pediatrician, honey, etc. On Valentine's Day of this year I took her into the ER during the night because it had been 5 days. She wouldn't go. She would sit on the toilet for hours with no progress. She was shaking from being tired and in pain. I took her in. She was begging me to get there faster! (broke my heart). The dr. tried several things that didn't work. The spent 2 hours giving her 2 bags of a soapsud enima. That finally did the trick. The result was the size of something that I would NEVER have expected from a child!

We still monitor her daily and when she reaches the 3 day mark we give her some Miralax in OJ. OJ seems to be the only thing that we can add it to and she doesn't really notice a difference.

Part of it is due to dehydration. At some point he became dehydrated and his body hasn't caught up. Monitor him. If he reaches the 5 day mark and/or his belly becomes hard, have him seen!

Make sure he is getting plenty of liquids. Not being milk or juice, well juice but it needs to be watered down. The high-fructose in juices are constipating as well is milk. Use miralax, it's great. I'm not sure if the dose is on the bottle for that age, if it's not just ask the pharmacists. Use it consistently, and don't give him the chance to get constipated because when they do get to this point when they go it hurts and then even though they say they need to go, they're still holding it because they are afraid it's going to hurt.

My oldest daughter had an issue like this occur about two years ago, it got to the point where there was so much backed up in her system that it was putting pressure on her urinary tract making it so that she could not even urinate without pushing extremely hard - very scary - so I know what you are going through. Our doctor put her first on a laxative to help clean her out for a day or two and then she was to take Mirilax daily for as long as we thought necessary. We kept her on it for 3 months and within a month of not giving it to her she started going a few days without going again so we were told to put her back on it and it was explained that she might need it for years - or possibly off and on for life if she is a person who just has extremely hard stools (which was causing her to hold it in because she was scared of the pain). She has now been using Mirilax for about 2 years and because she is older now (7) and better able to understand and explain to us when she is feeling like she does/doesn't need it we give it to her somewhat sporadically. Basically we give it to her for a few weeks, she tries to go without it for awhile but she always ends up wanting it again because she says "its starting to hurt again when I go". It seems to be that no matter what her diet consists of she still continues to have a harder stool than what is considered normal and there is a chance this could be occuring with your son also. As for being afraid to go, she was scared for the first month or two (there were still a few accidents and crying fits) but once she realized her stools were not as painful she slowly came around. It was a somewhat long process but our dr. did say that many, many children deal with this and that for some it takes a long time to "retrain" their thoughts and feelings about going. I hope things start going better for him, good luck!