| This saying has a whole new meaning when you are battling Encopresis! |
Holly has been sick off and on forever with belly issues. Even back when she was an infant we sometimes had to give her an enema. In the 5th grade we took her in. We've taken her back in to the dr. a time or two throughout the years and we never could really get to feeling better.
This year has been especially bad and our general practitioner sent us to a GI specialist with the encopresis diagnosis. We had an x-ray that showed build up.
Our GI specialist diagnosed her with stomach migraines and then did a belly scan and found sludge in her gall bladder. We set up an appointment with a surgeon but I kept feeling like she was too young for surgery and that wasn't really the problem necessarily anyway.
She has been having episodes of severe stomach aches that have kept her home from school. The episodes have gotten closer and closer and more severe. The dr. always said take some miralax and stool softener. That answer was correct however it was only this last 'bout when I finally heard what I needed to hear to help Holly...give her the medications until she runs clear. This came from Kira, our GI specialist's assistant.
I believe the poor girl has had a bowel obstruction...for a LONG time...and we never actually cleared it out. So we'd work around it (expel some waste but not the bulk of it). She'd feel better for 2-4 weeks and then it would build up again. This time the nurse told us to take 14 scoops of miralax mixed with 64 oz of water over 8 hours and 1-2 stool softeners morning and night. We did that all day Saturday. Repeat on Sunday if needed. It was needed. Monday morning came and she was still not "running clear." And she was miserable. She was just so done with hurting!!!
So I called the dr. office again (on the first day of 10th grade...which she sadly had to miss!!!) and this time they said to go get ducolax (another laxative) and give her 3 of them. Several hours later she finally passed her grapefruit sized obstruction.
Almost immediately her non-stop diarrhea stopped. Her mood and temperament went from miserable to happy and her skin cleared up. (She has been having pretty bad acne for a long time and overnight her face was clear and beautiful.) It was a miraculous change.
She has been battling this problem for years and I do believe it can come back however I think we now know exactly what we need to do to prevent it. And I think that because of the pain Holly has gone through that she will remain motivated to do it.
Basically she needs to eat a high fiber diet, stay away from lots of sugars and grease and have 1 (up to 2) capfuls of Miralax daily. She needs to make sure she is going to the bathroom daily.
She was only going every 2-3 days and sometimes going 7-10 days in between bowel movements. She needs to be super aware of what is happening and increase her dosage and alter her diet if she's fallen into bad habits if time starts stretching in between bowel movements ever again. I also need to watch her face as the toxicity seems to display itself there. If her acne starts getting bad again it's probably time to investigate!!!
I am so hopeful we have this figured out and can stay on top of it!
| Found these funny sheets on the last day of our episode with Encopresis. |
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