Have you ever heard of Encopresis?  Well, neither had I, until my son was diagnosed with it.  Oh, it is curable, so it wasn't a horrid thing to find out, but it is difficult to deal with.

So what is Encopresis?  Basically, it is a bowel condition brought on by chronic constipation in children older than age 4.  At some point, the child has a bowel movement that is a little painful, possibly because of a hard stool.  This painful experience causes the child to start holding in their bowel movements.  Eventually, after some time of doing this, some stool begins to leak out, which a parent (unknowingly) attributes to being a BM accident from potty training. 

This process continues to go on and on, with the child holding in their stool, and the parents believing that their BM accidents are ones that are simply potty training matters.  It isn't until a doctor realizes what is happening that the child is diagnosed as having Encopresis--and, since most parents are unfamiliar with this condition, it can be years before the doctor comes to a diagnosis.  Why?  Well, doctors listen when parents tell of problems with their children, but doctors are not witness to the problem.  And, since parents themselves think it is just the child being stubborn about potty training, they likely aren't presenting the problem to the doctor in any way other than that.

Encopresis should be considered as a diagnosis if your child is having problems with constipation and leaky, runny stools as well as BM accidents--but, not until after the age of 4.  Doctors feel that up until the age of 4 any issues with potty accidents may be due to potty training and most won't consider Encopresis until after that age.

How is Encopresis treated?  My son has to take a strong laxative (the generic of Miralax, the newest one on the market) every evening.  The idea behind this is to 'train' his body to have a bowel movement each day in the evening.  After taking it, he has to sit on the toilet for anywhere from 10 minutes to a half hour, it just depends.  He still has accidents sometimes--we only got him diagnosed about 2 months ago.  And, the doctor told us it could take up to 2 years for his bowels to return completely to normal.  We are also working with a child counselor to help him get past any fear issues--fear of BM's hurting is a huge factor in Encopresis.

So, if you are working with your child on potty training, and any of this sounds familiar, ask the doctor if your child might have Encopresis.  I wrote this article to try to get the word out about this condition--if I had known about it sooner, we could have gotten our son diagnosed sooner.  As it is, our son is now 6 years old.

If you would like to read about our journey to getting our son diagnosed, please check out another article I wrote here.