painful bowel movements

[dddizzy66]

I have a 3 1/2 yr nephew who started having problems with bowel movements at 18months.  They are very painful, even when it is a soft or watery bowel.  He will sometimes have many frequent movements in a day(sometimes as many as 12 times a day) and then sometimes he will go days with out any bowel movement.  He is currently seeing a specialist (we actually only see the nurse practioner on his visits)who says that he has trained his colin not to have bowel movements.  They prescribed laxatives and said that he may be on them for at least a year and maybe a life time.  They have taken xrays and said that he is backed up into his stomach, which explains the foul smelling vomit.  They did routine blood work and said his TSH is abnormal (5.4)  He is not getting any better with all these laxatives.  Can you recommend anything else to check.  There are several rare auto immune diseases in our family