Bye Bye Miralax
(Warning: Many overshares in this part. I assume we are all parents though so hopefully poop talk won’t shock you.)
I know I have mentioned on here before that Cooper has issues going poop. A little back story. Cooper had 1 meconium poop in the hospital after he was born and then didn’t poop again for 10 days. I shit you not! (I crack myself up!) I breastfed Cooper for the first 11 months of his life and I remember I tried everything with my diet to help with the constipation. No go.
The day of Cooper’s first birthday party was the first time I dug poop out of his butt. I am a super laid back person and poop doesn’t bother me but this was a traumatic experience for me. Cooper was in so much pain and the poop was stuck in his butt. Bad. But we got through it. This continued to happen once or so a week. It was awful. And the older he got the harder it would be to calm him down.
When he turned one, I brought Cooper to his pediatrician and demanded an x-ray of his stomach. I got the run around from the doctor. He told me that he saw no indication in past appointments that Cooper had constipation issues so why now. UGH! But, after much persistence he agreed. He ended the conversation with, “I’ll call you if something is wrong but don’t expect to hear from me.” So that afternoon I was dressing Cooper. The phone rang and I saw it was the doctor. Cue freak out. I have horrible cell service in my living room so I had to stand right up next to the window in order to hear him. Cooper was running around naked like the beast that he is. I wasn’t worried though because the kid never pooped.
The doctor told me that the results of the x-ray were really serious. Cooper was full of hard, round balls of poop and it needed to be addressed soon. I was trying to listen and focus on the doctor because this was really serious. And I had to hold back a big I TOLD YOU SO DOC! I glance over at Cooper and he is squatting on the floor pooping. I am not lying. My constipated boy pooped right there on the rug. I couldn’t let the doctor go because we were making appointments with specialists but I was dying. Only us.
After all the appointments, Cooper was prescribed Miralax. I HATE with a serious passion that Cooper has to be on Miralax. I am not against medicine in any way but I do try to avoid taking medication. Especially ongoing. And especially for a healthy little boy. But we tried everything before getting to this point.
- Adding fiber gummies, powder, etc.
- Adding a probiotic to his diet.
- Adding more fruit and veggies.
- Upping his water intake.
- Switching to almond milk, soy milk, etc.
- Cutting all dairy out.
- Adding more juice to his diet.
- Eating prunes like candy. I literally would puree them and add them to food. Ick.
- Suppositories. (For any parent that has done this I am sorry. It’s the worst)
Nothing worked besides the Miralax. And if we missed one day he would be extremely constipated. I have actually never seen anything like it. He would lay on the floor in pain, screaming. And once he got the poop out it was like stone. Well, after 1 year of giving Miralax daily we have weaned his little body off of it! He hasn’t had a dose since Friday and we survived the weekend. I totally attribute this to the fact that Cooper’s diet is night and day different from a year ago. He eats all foods now and way less junk/snacking. He also eats 3 fiber gummies a day and drinks more water and less milk. Less dairy in general.
This is just one more thing that is making life easier. Woo-Hoo. I have my fingers crossed that his little body can handle this change.
