All Doctors Don't Always Have the all the Answers

I have always said that doctors know a lot of things, but the absolutely do not know everything, and in this case that could not be more true, there's a story I would like to share.


My son is a very active, sometimes hyperactive boy, he is all over the place a lot. My son had been struggling with potty training, I mean really straining and struggling. We told his pediatrician who told us to keep working on it and try to motivate him, they also suggested for us to go see a developmental pediatrician. We took him to a center, and the doctor evaluated him. I have said all along that I believed that there was more to his potty training than just a behavioral issue, I just had a feeling that there was something else going on. The doctor said she wanted us to put him on a potty "sitting" program, and make a reward chart for him, not once discussing any medical issues that might be causing this problem, when I asked about any medical conditions because my son is constipated a lot, she stated she thought it was more behavioral. I had already made an appointment with a GI and advised her of it, she looked at us and said "Well you can do that if you want to, but in the meantime I want him on a sitting and rewards program, that should get him trained more than anything else". I also reiterated that I wanted to rule out other conditions first, and I was going to wait to develop a behavior program or plan until he saw the other specialists, she suggested that we take my son to see a psychologist to work on this issue, and help us create reward charts.


I took my son to a GI (it had taken months to get him in), he looked at my son and his stomach, then sent him for an x-ray of his abdomen. The results? his  bowels were impacted, his colon is twice the size it should be, and his rectum is 4 times normal size, the tissues are so stretched out, not only can he not feel when he has to go, he would not able to physically push it out even if he could feel it. Poor kid, we were asking him to do something he just physically could not do. I am amazed at how stoic he is, he was going though all of this, and we had no idea how bad it was, he just takes it all in stride and acts like his happy normal self. Any rewards system or behavior program would just have frustrated and traumatized us all even more, and according to his doctor, if it had gotten much worse, he could have started to vomit fecal matter as it continued to back up.


The condition is called "megacolon", and my son's symptoms were pretty typical, there is a lot of good info on it if you Google it.


I shudder to think what might have happened if we had gone the behavioral route, it would meant a lot more suffering all around.


As it is, once his system is clear, he has to go on a whole rehabilitative program with both meds and physical therapy to get his stomach muscles functioning again, and then hopefully our potty training adventures with him will be done, there is a light at the end of a very long, messy, smelly tunnel after all : )


Again, more validation that while doctors know a lot, they don't always know everything !!!!


If you don't get an answer that feels right to you, keep looking! Don't give up! I know sometimes doctors see a very active child, or one who acts outside of the norm, and they like to just assume that there is a behavior problem, it's what they know, I've talked to a lot of parents that have told me this, and a lot (though not all) of the time there turns out to be an underlying medical cause, and once that is taken care of, everything else falls into place. Even Freud once said "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" which means that we should not always try to psychoanalyze everything or come up with complex answers when sometimes the answer could be a simple explanation. 


As for us, we have a medical plan of meds and sitting combined, which my son is now more than happy to participate in, the reward is being a big boy,  having things under control, and no more "accidents". No reward chart needed.