Update on coming off MiraLax + some feedback needed

January 23, 2009

Hello everyone,

I have posted a couple of times already on an 8-year old coming off

MiraLax, and I promised an update. Here we go. We are in the week 2 I

believe. Cut Miralax cold turkey as had horrible side-effects:

meltdowns, dark circles under eyes, almost translucent skin, etc. We

visited a ayrovedic practitioner, and were advised to take Triphala,

500mg with warm milk every night, cut cold foods and drinks, increase

fish oil to 2,000mg a day, do vitamin C, use lots of olive and coconut

oil in cooking, use Ghee butter in soups and on toasts, etc. That all

seemed to help somewhat. The stools progressively became dryer as the

MiraLax was dissapearing out of the system. I consulted the board and

started her on Kids Calm (day 3), and added prunes in her diet. And I

think Kids Calm did make a difference. We also started Kirkmans

chewables. We had to use senna once since stopping Miralax which

upset me a lot, as my goal was to go laxative-free.

With all these said, I would still like some input from the board on a

few issues that bother me. My 8-year old has struggled with

constipation pretty much since birth. We have used an occasional

laxative here and there, but mostly used diet modifications, lots of

prunes, soups cooked with red beets and other vegetables, etc. Then

came a day in December when DD was screaming at night and complaining

of stomach pain, and we rushed her to ER. The ER did an ex-ray and

diagnosed her with constipation, and put her on Miralax (which

Pediatrician supported) with no expiration date. The Miralax cleaned

her out, but the daily stomach pains continued ever since. Mild (on

the scale of 1 to 10, DD always says that it's either 1 or 2), but

persistent (all day long, with almost no interruptions). The

pediatrician shrugged and sent us for urine test, blood test,

ultrasound, stool culture. All came back normal. It's been more than 6

weeks since the incident, but the daily mild abdominal pains are still

here and not going away. Any feedback or ideas would be really

appreciated.

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