My 5 year old son has problems passing stools.

My son is 5 years old and was diagnosed as autistic a year ago. 

We have issues with him going to the toilet to pass stools. 

It started off with him only passing a stool once a week but it was very big and didn't look normal for someone the size of him. With this he wouldn't go to toilet he would go away and hide and crouch down and pass it on his hands and knees. A good few times when we cleaned him up the stool would block the toilet.

After reading up about it we came to the conclusion he was stool with holding and the doctor had prescribed laxatives.  After going through 4 different types of laxatives his stools are now very soft and dirty whilst on the laxatives but still can't get him to go to the toilet to pass them, he still goes off to hide and when we find him he denies he has pooped. He could potentially go through 4 changes of clothes a day including when he is at school. 

We have tried everything we can think of, charts, presents, sweets, celebrating, even promised holidays but nothing seems to be working. Having been back and fore to doctors we only ever seem to get prescribed laxatives and we understand this can be a length process but nothing seems to point that we are going the right way. It is also starting to affect his behaviour as every time he needs changed after soiling he doesn't want to which can then sometimes kick off a melt down. 

Any advice / help would be much appreciated. 

Thanks

Parents
  • Hi there, I am new to this site, but your message reminds me of my daughter who is 11 now. She was always terrified of going to the loo and even now, she can't wipe her own bottom and will only go at home. The thing that worked for us in the end was to have a bag of wrapped up presents hanging on the bathroom door and she could chose something once she'd gone for her poo. There was the element of surprise as everything was mysterious. It was only things like pencils and little toys,  but she liked it enough to (kind of) overcome her fear. Having said that, it wasn't easy and she wasn't ever really ok with it. I'm sorry, I know how tough and worrying it can be.

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  • Hi there, I am new to this site, but your message reminds me of my daughter who is 11 now. She was always terrified of going to the loo and even now, she can't wipe her own bottom and will only go at home. The thing that worked for us in the end was to have a bag of wrapped up presents hanging on the bathroom door and she could chose something once she'd gone for her poo. There was the element of surprise as everything was mysterious. It was only things like pencils and little toys,  but she liked it enough to (kind of) overcome her fear. Having said that, it wasn't easy and she wasn't ever really ok with it. I'm sorry, I know how tough and worrying it can be.

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