My daugter is 7. She's had trouble with constipation for a while because she is afraid to push and holds it in. I was instructed by her pediatrician to , in addition to high fiber diet and lots of water, to use suppositories and enemas until I could see the gastroenterologist. She's not in pain and the suppositories have worked. I've taken her to the ER once and after an xray they sent her home with instrucitons to use an enema. she had moderate constipation. I took her to the Gastroenterologist on Friday who felt her stomach (did not take and xray) and said she needs a barium enema xray and the only way to clean her out is put her in the Hospital to have two pedialax fleet enemas administerd and have a tube inserted through her nose down into her stomach to admister liquid laxative. No sedation of any kind. This seems pretty extreme and will be very traumatic. I asked the gastro if I could try a clean out at home first before such extreme measures and she said nothing would work and the hospital is the only option. I asked the dr. if the enamas were peresciption and she said they were the over the counter pedilax enemas. I asked why I couldn't try the enemas at home with laxative by mouth like Phillips milk of magnesia and her response was a firm, the hospital is the only option. I'm having a hard time believing that the over the counter pedialax enema sitting in my medicine cabinet at home will only work in the hospital. Also, a tube will be up the nose is really going scare her and she will not be cooperative. All this is done before they do a barium enema which is tramatic in and of itself. I get the feeling that the Hosipal may be more convenient for the Dr. and is the reason she's pushing the hospital. The hospital appointment is Tuesday morning. I asked the dr. what do do in the mean time and she said pedia lax enema eveyday for 3 days. The enemas are working and she's not in any pain and the what's coming out isn't hard so she's not complaining when she goes.
I've asked a Dr. on justanswers.com from TX who's been practicing for 30 years. I checked him out and his is a legitimate Dr. here in Tx. He told me that an oil retention enema and soap suds enema to tolerance administered at home the night before the barium enema will get the job done and there's no need to submit my little girl the trauma of the hospital procedure. Please, give me some advice. I'm freaking out here!!
Thanks to everyone for the advice.
I consulted with her preditrician. She suggested I take her to the hospital and if I didn't want to proceed just let them know and she'd send me out for a second opinion from a different GI. The day before the procedure, I used an oil retention enema then used a castile soap suds enemas until the result was clear. The day of the procedure I told the nurse what I had done at home and asked that an xray be taken to see if she still needed the NG tube procedure. The nursed contacted the Dr. and informed me that the Dr. agreed to the xray and canceled the NG tube canceled the blood and canceled the IV, so no needles. Yea! My daughter and I waited all day with other parents in the playroom who's kids were having the same procedure. Some kids were coughing and crying with the NG tube coming out of their noses. The parents told me the nurses wrapped them up and restrained them while they inserted the NG tube. The children gagged, screamed and cried. It was horrible. All day we could here children screaming and crying down the halls from the procedure. The parents had to hold their kids down while the nurses inserted the NG tube. They asked why my daughter didn't have a tube or IV. I told them about the enema treatment I had done in order to try to avoid the NG tube and they all told me the Dr. had told them that the hospital was the only option, just like I had been told. They were pretty upset at what they were putting their kids through. I told them we were just waiting on the xray then the barium enema would be done if the colon was clean enough, then we'd get to go home. One parent was really upset because she had just started a new job and had to take two days off because of the overnight hospital stay. She was worried she was going to lose her job. We arrived at 8am and at 3PM they finally called us for the Xray. Radiology took an xray and said everything was a good to go for the barium enema. During the procedure, she was scared and nervous but I held her the whole time and reassured her that everything was going great and it would be over really soon. The tech kept bumping my head with the machine so I made a big joke about how this dude keeps bumping my head man. By the end of the procedure she was laughing. The xray techs were amazed that the cleanout was so effective and asked me what I did. They commented that the barium coming out was just as white and clean as when it went in. I told them about the soap suds enema and they couldn't believe how effective it was. We found that her colon has redundancies which means it's longer than normal and makes extra turns which is causing the problem. The solution is Miralax and sienna everyday for awhile to get things on track. We were able to go home that afternoon. It was finally over! We went to chuckie cheese after where she she had so much fun.
Once again thank you to everyone.
Second opinion ASAP. Did you take her to the Children's Hospital there in San Antonio to the ER? If you took her to a regular ER, I would go to the Children's Hospital ER instead. They will have a network of specialists available.
Keep us posted on how she's doing. I hope she has relief soon.
If you don't trust your Dr., get a second opinion from another board certified Dr., NOT a Dr., Google.
I personally would not be waiting too long to make this decision if my child's health was at risk.
You clearly need a second opinion since you don’t seem to trust your daughter’s doctor.
It is possible though that she has a significant blockage higher up in her track that won’t resolve on its own. There could be just a small opening allowing waste to pass and that is what you are seeing.
I would get a second opinion ASAP.
I think I would be very overwhelmed if I were in your shoes. You just want to help your baby, and what this doctor is suggesting does sound scary and extreme. If you can't get a second opinion from another GI quickly, call your pediatrician and have him/her explain to you why this is necessary.
I can't imagine sending your daughter to the hospital is any easier on the doctor than having you do this at home. I don't think the actual enemas are the problem. Rather, there's probably more involved in addition to the enemas, which is something the doctors says can only happen in the hospital.
It is possible that the doctor was able to detect something without an xray or test. If you can't get an appointment with another GI to get a second opinion, call your pediatrician with your concerns.
Well, if he could "feel" her blockage that means it is huge and if you give her an enema at home she could have awful consequences.
If you don't believe this doc then take your child to the ER or something.
Our girl gets blockages. The last one she had they gave her Miralax for 4 days. It took a toll on her physically. If they'd have said she needed to be in the hospital to get relief I wouldn't have said a thing.
As to the anesthesia, I can't think of exactly why they wouldn't allow something, even if it's very light but if the doc says no then they must have a good reason.
I don't know what exactly is going on with your child but my child had several blockages (found out it was due to an inability to properly process dairy) and his doctor just put him on Miralax which he took at home after a regular X-ray showed the blockage and the at home treatment worked just fine. I think you need a second opinion.
A home enema, like a suppository, isn't going to clean her out well, and it's not going to reach the upper part of her digestive tract. So I can see that she might need more than that, but if the in-hospital and at-home procedures are the same, then hospitalization makes little sense, even without the NG tube which I agree would be traumatic.
I think you need another opinion, big time. You don't trust the doctor and you feel forced into things - yet you have a 7 year old with a persistent problem. She might be "holding it in" (and I've seen that in my nephew and my stepdaughter) but it shouldn't affect the entire digestive tract over and over. A colleague's child had problems with a kink in his intestine, but that was picked up on x-ray and ultrasound, showing impacted feces. So you should be demanding tests that show where the blockage is.
I'm sure you know that these endless enemas aren't solving the problem. So I think you should, in the absence of an emergency in your child, cancel Tuesday's hospitalization and get another pediatric GI appointment ASAP. You're in a major city, so I'd call the nearest children's hospital and get the first available appointment with a team - psychologist, GI specialist, social worker and behavioral expert. You could also consider talking to the manager/head pharmacist at your local pharmacy to see if any of the products used for colonoscopy prep are safe for children. Make sure that what you're using orally and rectally are compatible with each other too. I work in food science and have worked extensively with people (all ages) with chronic constipation and there is a lot you can do with food-based products that will bypass a child's desire to hold it in without a battle.
You should go to a 2nd doctor ASAP and get a 2nd opinion. If they say the same thing you should do it. My brother had to have this done when he was about age 5. He was in horrible pain from the constipation and afterwards he felt so much better. He never had it happen again.
get a second opinion. if things are working why traumatize a child like that? definitely check with a different dr, even if you have to pay out of pocket for one not in your network. do it, cross state lines, take the child to a peds hospital for evaluation before you agree that traumatization is the way to go
My daughter had health issues and one of the complications was severe constipation. She took everything at home for years. When she was about twelve she was admitted to the hospital for the tube in her nose and they pumped many gallons of the medication into her and - no results. They finally had to do surgery as she had a severe blockage with rock hard stool stuck high up in her colon. She went home the next day and has been fine since. She had been having problems for years and they always just said take mirilax, enemas, mineral oil, etc. Finally I really pushed it and said that is not working and that's when they admitted her and found that we were not being crazy lunatics. If you doctor is saying she needs to be admitted personally I wouldn't mess around with it. I would have her there in a heartbeat. Good luck.
I had a dear friend who had terrible constipation due to medication after a surgery. It lasted weeks. Took her to urgent care and they gave her intravenous fluids for a couple hours and it worked like a charm. Relief before they sent her home. No enema. Would they try this insread?? Seems traumatic to do an enema on a child this age.
Ask another doctor. If she's going, it sounds like this doctor is stuck in their ways.
I would recommend having your kid take Fish Oil gummies. They really help loosen up the stool and they have many other health benefits. The ones we use are Dolphin gummies. My kid loves them and they really do keep them going.
I would definitely seek out a second opinion. Our son also had encopresis off and on for many years. It could get bad, with him holding in poop for a week, until it was almost like giving birth when he finally went. Suppositories helped a lot, but what really worked was just getting him on a poop schedule. Once his body got used to going at a specific time, he started going then every day. Not once was there ever talk of a scary procedure at a hospital. Maybe you're dealing with a worse case than our son's, but I would seek out another medical opinion in person before moving forward with a procedure that rightfully makes you uneasy.
