About Constipation (Long)

[Guest guest]

We did not think my son was constipated because he goes regularly and

a lot but he seems constipated and so we are questioning this. Please

read his story and let me kknow what you think:

We are trying to figure out Gibson's bowels/eating because they are

not typical of kids with autism.

Gibson eats tons! Whatever we give him! Tons of meat ie. 4 large

hamburgers in one sitting and he is asking for more, 4 large zuccini

with olive oil as a snack, half a 12-pound turkey/week, a 5-pound bag

of carrots in 1 week, a whole avocado and he is asking for more, a

whole thing of broccoli (3stalks) at once. He is only a toddler. He

doesn't really crave any one thing and rarely refuses food. He is

usually begging for food. He is on the SCDiet with further

restrictions.

When we first discovered autism we put him on a strict GFCF- diet (no

fruit as well) and for some reason he stopped drinking water. His

stools became pellet-like and less frequent. He has been SCD since

November and around that time we also added limited fruit, magnesium

and Lauricidin. He started having 3-5 well-formed, large stools per

day. We were happy because it was a better reflection of what was

going in him. However, he continues toe-walking, still has a

distended abdomen, and ASD symptoms (our main concern) have not

improved. A couple of months ago he started drinking water again and

we were happy about that.

Although he was initially low in some minerals, supplementation has

fixed that problem. I don't know why he eats so much - I have been

told it could be an obsession or it could be to alleviate pain,

anxiety. I have also wondered about hungry gut bugs, but most ASD

kids have gut bugs and are picky eaters.

The constipation symptoms also perplex me - toe-walking, distended

abdomen. Several people have told us they think he is constipated. Why

would he be constipated with so much coming out of him? 3-5

medium-large well-formed, not-overly-hard bowel movements/day. Can

you have that many stools and still be constipated? Does he still

have to make up for the summer when he only had pellet

stools? Could there be a mass there that isn't coming out while the

rest of the stuff does? We would rather solve this without endoscopy etc.

What else should we be doing? He doesn't strain to have a

bowel movement.

If anyone has insight into these issues, let me know. I think about

this constantly.

Thanks a lot, Hope, mother of Gibson, SCD since Nov. 2003