Unstuck - The Official Constipation Coach Blog

Happy summer! Ah, the season of sunshine, outdoor play, barbecues, travel and … constipation!  Summer is the hardest season for many of my patients with chronic constipation. I’ve noticed this trend for years, and I’ve mostly attributed it to dehydration. We live in a hot, dry summer climate, and my patients and their families like to spend a lot of time playing outside. It doesn’t take long for poop to dry out.  But I’ve been reading more about circadian rhythms lately, and I think schedule disruptions might be as much of a culprit in summer constipation as dehydration. Let me explain:  We...

Have you ever gone to a party and realized that two of your best friends know each other quite well and get along great? I recently had that experience, although instead of “friends” it was two areas of my PT practice, and instead of a “party” it was a class I was teaching. So basically, the exact same experience 🙂.  Ok, it’s a little bit of a stretch. But I taught a group of PTs and OTs this fall about chronic constipation, and they asked a lot of questions about how to treat kids with limited mobility and spasticity. To...

Hello again! After a long break, I’m back to writing about pediatric constipation and all the ways we can help hurting kids have happy and healthy bowels. I have so many things to write about: abdominal massage, the use of e-stim to treat constipation, treating kids with spasticity… But I listened to a Mom and Dad are Fighting episode this week, and I realized I have a more timely - and more significant - issue to address: school bathroom policy.  For those of you who don’t listen to Mom and Dad are Fighting, it’s a terrific podcast about parenting. (It’s...

Here is a scenario that is incredibly common in the world of chronically constipated kids: my child was doing great, pooping every day, but sometime after we potty trained them, they got backed up and have been struggling ever since.  How does this happen? How can it be avoided? Potty training offers several opportunities for constipation to enter the picture.   Scenario one:  Some kids are experts at peeing in the toilet, very early in life. They are mostly potty trained at 18 months and they never look back. Sure, they might still be in pull-ups at night, and sure, they...