Susan GrahamPoop Issues
November 15th 2008 17:18
As an infant, she would get so constipated she would just scream while she struggled to push out her poops. Her face would get all red, and she would break out in a sweat. When we started potty training around age 3, the “pee” side of things came along fine. But with her constipation, she had a couple of “bad” poops that hurt her, and she has been terrified to poop ever since.
Today, she holds her poop for a week or more at a time. I think the record was like 14 days. In those periods between poops, her personality changes dramatically. As the poop grows in her belly, Princess turns into the Wicked Witch. She gets mean, throws tantrums, and doesn’t sleep. As a result, she gets time outs, loses privileges, and doesn’t get to have any fun. She wakes up at night crying because her belly hurts.
Last week, Princess actually missed school because of her refusal to poop. She got herself so worked up she couldn’t stop crying, and we just couldn’t send her to school in that condition. It was like she was having a nervous breakdown.
We have tried everything to encourage Princess to poop. We’ve offered money, toys, ice cream, and other incentives. We’ve threatened her with doctor visits, suppositories, and loss of privileges. Nothing has worked.
We thought that once she started first grade and went to school all day, she would start keeping up with her poops. It helped for a while. But then she got backed up again, and it’s now day 8 without a poop.
I am truly at my wit’s end with this problem. It’s like watching your child become addicted to drugs. You are watching your child suffer, but you are helpless to do anything about it. The doctors tell us to ignore it; she has to decide to do it herself. But this becomes more impossible the longer she goes without pooping. It’s maddening.
For now, I will keep loading her drinks with Benefiber and hope for the best. The more I push her, the more she pushes back. I can’t figure out if she is really this stubborn or if she needs psychological counseling for a legitimate phobia of pooping. I am inclined to think it’s the former, based on what I know of my daughter. I will keep you posted.
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