7 yr old holding poop

[marrie216]

I need help, my 7 yr old son has had by problems since he was 3, he has been to drs and done miralax for years. He holds his poop in all the time. I always worry it might be something else, but living on miralax every day is not an a good idea in my opinion. His problem is all in his head, and we've just recently gone to enemas every 5 days when there's a problem. Used to be 10 days. That was scary. He will literally hold it until you make it come out. I've tried punishments rewards etc to no avail. We've used magnesium citrate, fiber supplements, suppositories and prunes. It all helps for a while then right back to holding it. Any ideas would be great, something I haven't thought of? Also he eats a good diet, veggies fruits wheat bread lots of water, gets plenty of exercise. Just lost.

[AnnieBrooke]

Modern diets are really low in fiber compared to the way humans were evolved to eat.  So if you have to add fiber to his diet, just do it.  I don't mean a laxative, I just mean basic fiber.  (At our house, we all get a fiber gummy -- two for the adults -- every day, as a matter of course.)  

How seriously does his doctor take the encopresis?  Has your son had an X-ray, or been cleaned out at the hospital?  If the doctor were to talk with him about the importance of pooping every day to his health (and if this talk was without you in the room), would he listen?  My son took that quite seriously.  The problem becomes that the poop gets so compacted and hard that it simply kills the kid to try to push it out, so he avoids.  

Talk to his pediatrician in depth, but if the pedi is clueless about how serious a problem this is (and it is both serious and common for pediatricians not to know much about it), insist on a referral to a pediatric gastroenterologist.  

[MarkLakewood3367]

I would get a second and third MD opinion.  I had this same problem as a child.  As an adult, I developed Crohn's disease and recently, needed to have my colon removed to avoid getting colon cancer.  This could be a serious problem that has gone unidentified.  Unless you know for certain that your son is misbehaving, I would not hold him responsible by punishing him for this behavior as this may deepen the shame.