:confused: A little intro...my son will be 5 in August, we have been dealing with his pooping accidents for 3 yrs. He has been on Mirlax for 2 yrs. and over the past year we have been seeing a GI Dr. in St Louis. She "labeled" him with Encopresis, which we accepted and did all the potty sits, + praise and added affection, etc. Since my husband and I are both teachers, we decided that this summer, since we are both home, we would control this problem and get him trained so he can go to K in the fall. Well, over the summer he not only still poops in his pants but has recently begun peeing also. My husband and I are at our wits end. We feel we have given him SO much more attention and + feedback and really have made him feel special, only to have this. His last visit to the GI specialist was our last...she seems to think it is behavioral now and we should see a psychologist. He goes in to see his Ped. next Wed. After reading some posts here I think we should get some tests run, just to check for diabetes and bladder disfunctions. Any other parents out there who can relate and maybe point us in the right direction? Although we will send him back to daycare in the fall if we have to, we really would like to send him to K (he is mentally and socially VERY ready). In addition we are AFRAID to start potty training our 2 yr. old because of this....Thanks for ANY advice!

Does your son drink enough water when taking Mirlax to keep all of the stools soft and not have hard stools with leakage around them? I personally take Mirlax and find if I do not drink enough water constipation will be worse. How much Mirlax does your son take each time? Dosage may be too much or too little for him.

Do not hold off training your 2 year old. Chances are the 2 year old will train very easy. Just because one child has a problem does not mean the other one will.

As you know, it is the parents who become trained first, that is, they learn the time their child is most likely due a bathroom visit. My little grandson is 3 and still not poo trained and his timing is about 30 minutes after meals. Nope, his mom/dad still do not pick up on the cue and take him until after he has an accident. Have you tried "blowing up baloons" while sitting, this supposedly helps the child get the right muscles working to succeed.

Best to not get upset with the child (yeah, hard not to sometimes). If you ask if he needs to go to the bathroom, most likely he will say no. Just tell him it is time to go to the bathroom.

The child's diet may need to be adjusted to help avoid constipation. Drinking plenty of water is very necessary.

Hi all-three-boys,

I am a little surprised that you have not seen kids with this problem (encopresis, soiling etc) in school seeing that both of you are teachers! Please do send your child to K, there is no guarantee that his problems will go away any day soon and he will need to enter school at the appropriate age!
Inform the school, make sure the teacher knows about his enco, ask for the support of the principal and school nurse etc etc but I personally would not hold him back just because of this problem...

We have been struggling with this problem for years and years and our daughter is entering 3rd grade after summer and still not problem free...

You may want to look up another message board, something like aboutencopresis.com, and you will find many many parents ready to offer support, specifically for this situation.

Ok, now for my experiences. You need to make sure the obvious is ruled out, so have your son tested for celiac, diabetes, and thyroid functions. If you feel it is any help you may also want to consider an MRI (to rule out thethered cords) or a sitz marker tests (this determines if your son's bowel has a mobility issue).
BUT in all reality an X-Ray would be the first thing to ask for, just to make sure your son didn't develop megacolon, or isn't very impacted.
Next is to try different diet options and see if they make any difference: try to delete all milk, yoghurt and cheese from the diet (or if you want to be even more extreme all animal protein) and see if this makes any difference.

The fact that he now also pees his pants makes me think impaction (the bowel is so full that it actually presses on his bladder). In our daughters case I know we will have soiling accidents if we had a couple of days with wet pants.
If he has an impaction, or is constipated he will keep on soiling, no matter what you do! So, the first thing to do would be to make sure he is not impacted by doing a full clean out.

You may also want to check out soiling solutions and see if that program makes you feel you want to go that way (it is a striclty behavioral program).
We did a modified soiling solution program with lots of support from our pediatric gastroenetologist.

There are many things that come into play with this problem: the physical facts, his and your frustrations, emotions, behavioral issues. A good psychotherapist will help you deal with all of these BUT make sure you find someone who has dealt with encopresis because otherwise you will be stuck with the "star chart" again, which will absolutely not work with enco kids!

Please feel free to ask more questions, we have been dealing with this for more than 6 years and there isn't much we haven't tried or seen.
Our daughter is doing great at the moment, but that doesn't guarantee anything for the future (oh, and she doesn't suffer from anything else appart from the enco, she does will in school, is happy and smart and beautiful!).

Good luck!

Karen

I agree with Luka. If you read my post about my 8-year-old with constipation you'll see we all deal with similar situations. I have read lately through the boards and elsewhere about the pee accidents because the bowels are so full and pressing on the bladder. I'm sure it's not a major abnormality. Just start with a simple x-ray to check the bowels.

My son is 11 and soiling issues have started again! when he was in 1st grade we started having the problems and began seeing a GI specialist, Miralax daily, potty sits etc. He was also wetting the bed at night. this went on until we got him cleaned out (thus yes, your child may be compacted). very frustrated that in the 6th grade my sons problems are back. we are going to a new DR next week as i dont want to go thru the miralax routine again. my sons self-esteem has totally been shot. it's very difficult!

Hi there Hyr. old parents,

I have a 10 yr. old and he has Encopresis so I know what you are going through. I ahve been goijng through this now for 6 months. I just recently about a month and a half ago found a peditrician that knew what my son had. we were trying the Miralax that would give him Diarreha then we quit and had another x-ray to see what he had in his abdomen. he was full again when we went back to the docotr's. So know we are at a gastroenterologist office and we had to get my son cleaned out I mean get all the bowel out with the medicine called Lactulose and some Miralax. Know he wants us to have a Sitz Marker X-ray done. That is where the child swallows a capsule filled with tiny little radioactive markers. Then we go back on the 6th day to have an X-ray done to see if my son has any of the tiny little markers left in his abdomen. Then if he does the doctor will do some more testing. If they are gone then we will have to continue the Miralax and we are also going to see a psycotherapist to help him about him going in his pants. The therapist will work with him on getting him to go to the toilet instead of him using his pants. It is a long process and I really and truly know what you are going through. My son also has a nother student at his school with the same problem as my son.

There is a program called "Soiling Solutions" that helps cure encopresis. My almost 5 year old son had encopresis and my husband and I were at our wits end not knowing what to do to get him to stop pooping in his underwear. The pooping in his underwear went on for at least 2 years. We were worn out trying to figure out what to do. We really wanted to send him to Kindergarten in the fall so we went searching online about encopresis. We found this program which was designed by a psychologist and our son was cured in 3 DAYS!!! Yes, you read that right - 3 DAYS!!! The program costs something like $50 but I'm telling you it was worth EVERY PENNY!!! If you want to know more, don't hesitate to ask.