My 22 month old boy had rectal strep about 6 weeks ago. With that came sudden constipation with a very hard, large BM that had a little bit of blood on it. He has been having A LOT of pain now when he has a BM. THe doctor said there was a small fissure initially but now that is gone. He is on a stool softener to keep his stools very mushy. For sure the strep is gone too, but he is still having pain. Does anyone know if this is normal for rectal strep? The GI doctor wants to do a barruim anema but I am scarred of all the radiation he would get (equivilent to 25-50 chest x-rays). The doctor already put a scope up a few inches into his rectum and everything looked normal. Can fissures cause pain after they 'appear' to have healed? Any ideas of what could be wrong??

Ok, since no body is going to respond to my post, they I'll respond to myself! I did do the barium enama yesterday and everything is normal. I got a new GI doctor that said Franklin may or may not be having pain but that he is holding on to his poop because he scarred that it will hurt and that this can become a really bad habit. He said that if we do nothing that he will have a huge colon in the future and will be able to hold his poop for a week at a time! So he said I should give him enough stool softener and fiber so that he has 1 or 2 bowel movements a day and gradually ease up on the stool softener over time (6 month - year) and then just use fiber -- he said 85% of kids who do this will get over the fear of pooping within a year. So that's the plan for now.