6 year old and wetting pants. Is there anything I can do?

[sewaneecook]

I have a feeling my just-turned-6-year-old has overactive bladder.  He regularly wets his pants (5-10x/week), sometimes it's just a little dribble that happens on his way to the toilet, but other times it is a lot more, he's only been dry during the night about 5 times in his life, and he has an urgent need to pee when he has to go.  We live about 15-30 minutes from the places we go regularly and he'll use the toilet right before we leave and within 5 minutes of leaving the house he has to go again ... and he'll be in hysterics until he can get to a toilet and there's usually a damp spot on his underwear when we arrive at our destination.  This is embarrassing for him and frustrating for me (in my head I realize this is probably something he has no control over, but some days it's really hard to keep my cool when he's on his 5th pair of underwear and pants!).  Is there anything that can help him?  Would a chiropractor be of any help? Is diet an issue (we already know he has an anaphylactic allergy to egg)?  Is there any physical therapy that might help?  Google has helped with finding overactive bladder as a possible reason for all of this, but it hasn't been very helpful with finding things that help in children.  Anyone out there with experience?

[eli.]

I'm not sure I have any answers for you, but I'm bumping your thread because I want more information as well!

My son is 4&1/2 and I expect this may be a problem for him for a while...  (I wonder if I think this way because it was for ME when I was growing up....)  I am taking him to see a Cranial Osteopath, and I'm not sure yet if that's helping (he only had his 2nd appointment today, and they're scheduled only once a month).  He's also dealing with constipation and some encopresis, which IS getting better (again not sure if it's because of the Osteopathy or what we're doing at home) - but because constipation/stretched out bowel can put pressure on the bladder, we won't probably be able to sort out his bladder issues until the bowel problems are cleared up....

Behaviorally it seems that my son gets so caught up in what he has to do he doesn't identify/listen to his body's signals, but I'm also not sure that his body is SENDING clear signals - that's basically what I hope the Osteopathic treatment might help with.

Good luck & I look forward to hearing from others who had seen success!

[sewaneecook]

Interesting about the link of constipation and wetting issues.  DS has always had more than the average bowel movements, I wonder if there's a link here.  We've started eating fermented pickles which has all sorts of great probiotics in them and he's currently in a cleansing out phase because of it, IYKWIM!  Maybe that will show some improvement with the pants wetting?  I have an appointment with a chiropractor tomorrow to see if she can help with anything.  Does a Cranial Osteopath do cranial sacral therapy?  I'm not familiar with what they do. 

[amcal]

DD had the same issue at 5yo. She had been potty trained for over 2 years and all of the sudden, she started wetting her pants. It was constipation. I was shocked because she was a daily pooper, sometimes 2 x a day! But, she wasn't fully eliminating when she pooped so, she had a lot of feces backed way up. I started giving her a bit of Miralax daily and the amount of poop that came out of that kid was amazing. And, the wetting stopped immediately.

[eli.]

Cranial Sacral Therapy is a small piece of Cranial Osteopathy.

Osteopathy seems much more involved than Chiropractic treatment to me (at least judging by the length of the treatment session).

As to other differences, from what I understand Chiropractors look at the boney alignment of the spine & it's effect on the nerves, while Osteopaths looks at the fascial connections between all the bones in the body, as well as the flow of the cerebral spinal fluid.  There's probably a whole lot more differences, that I just don't understand...

Did you notice any improvements after the Chiropractor appointment?

Originally Posted by sewaneecook 

Interesting about the link of constipation and wetting issues.  DS has always had more than the average bowel movements, I wonder if there's a link here.  We've started eating fermented pickles which has all sorts of great probiotics in them and he's currently in a cleansing out phase because of it, IYKWIM!  Maybe that will show some improvement with the pants wetting?  I have an appointment with a chiropractor tomorrow to see if she can help with anything.  Does a Cranial Osteopath do cranial sacral therapy?  I'm not familiar with what they do. 

[mizzoh]

not sure i have any answers for you, but i have had similar issues with my ds, also 6.  i will say this - when we were last at the pedi i metioned to her that he still had "accidents" and she semed to think that was well within the norm for the age.  a few years ago she also metioned the constipation connection ( although i'm not convinced that was the problem, even though ds does often have large bm's)  i will say things have improved as he's gotten older, although he's still NEVER been dry at night.

[sewaneecook]

An interesting update:  We had the chiro appointment and he went from being wet anywhere from 1-5x/day to being dry for an entire week!  He was still wet every night, but during the day he didn't have a single accident for a week.  It's now been about a week and a half and each day since the week mark, he's started being wet more frequently.  After the appointment his bowel frequency and volume increased too!  We have another appointment today with the chiropractor and I'm hoping we see such great results again. The chiro focused on the lumbar area and his pelvic region. 

Eli, thanks for the description of what a Cranial Osteopathist does.  It isn't something I've ever heard of before.

[dogretro]

Read the book "It's No Accident" by Steve J. Hodges. He is a pediatric urologist and he definitely blames constipation as the main reason kids have toileting troubles. The very most interesting thing I learned from this book was the following: Constipation in children looks different than it does in adults. What we would consider to be healthy "logs" is actually constipation. Having large bms is also a sign of constipation. Even pooping every day means nothing b/c the child may not be fully voiding their bowels. Overstuffed bowels puts pressure on the bladder. He also asserts that accidents should not happen at all in toilet trained children, just like they do not in toilet trained adults. A *really* good book. Has not solved all of our problems here, but made us realize what the main problem was.

[sewaneecook]

dogretro, if the healthy logs aren't healthy in children, then what is healthy?  That's definitely a book I have to check out!  Thanks for the tip.

[eli.]

Originally Posted by sewaneecook 

dogretro, if the healthy logs aren't healthy in children, then what is healthy?  That's definitely a book I have to check out!  Thanks for the tip.

the Soiling Solutions program (see soilingsolutions.com or encopresis.com) says "hot dogs" daily are normal...

[eli.]

Here's a link to the article which summarizes the Steve Hodges book mentioned above.

Although none of us can say for certain if this is your child's problem, it's definitely food for thought....

How's it going?

[leighi123]

Ds has food allergies and some of them cause the symptoms you are describing.  One is apple seeds (and therefore apple juice), another is dyes, artfical flavoring, and preservatives, and the last one is juice boxes (the boxes themselves, regardless of type of juice.  

I'd look into allergies as a possible cause, especially b/c he has other allergies.   We did "nutrition response testing" to determine the ones ds has, it was very accurate.