Since the visit with her GI Dr. my daughter has been given a daily dose of Miralax (OTC laxative) to “help” her move her bowels. IT’S WORKING!!! Not that I want to jinx all the good in any way but her GD flare ups constantly revolve around her needing to move her bowels. Once she does so she goes back to being just Katie!! Yep that’s her name by the way.

So, now when she starts with the GD we tell her either to go to the potty (we’ve started potty training which is going very very well) or to her room to “cross her legs”. She’ll even tell you now that she needs to “cross her legs” in Katie’s room. So she definitely is starting to learn where / when to do this. But if we sit with her for a while on the potty she’ll move her bowels, jump up all excited and then go on her merry way with no more GD until the next movement.

We still do every now and then see a little while she’s sleeping / very sleepy but not like before. Since these daily bowel movements we’ve done all the things we were doing before this started to take over. She wakes in the morning happy and ready to talk / play. Instead of staying in bed for hours on end ( we’d never know when she was up b/c she would just stay in bed to do GD ) and coming out with a head of hair wet with sweat from GD. She eats all her meals!! Plays with everyone everywhere without stopping for GD. And at night time when she would normally start up with the GD we snuggle, color, watch t.v., read books, etc. instead!!

It’s been a wonderful passed few days here on my end. 99.99% of my daily stress was watching her do the GD and not live her life. So, I’d say countless times, many different things to try and get her attention / to stop and nothing ever worked.

Had someone suggested in the beginning ” Hey, did you ever do an Early Intervention Evaluation to see if she has sensory issue’s?” we would’ve been here so much sooner.  This advice to do this came from my mother. She had said right from the beginning ” It sounds like a sensory issue” and my response was always that ”If it’s that simple then why haven’t any of the doctor’s said so?”.

I know that we’re one case. I’m not a doctor! I don’t have a degree in anything related to any of these things regarding GD, child psych or what have you. But I’m a firm believer of nothing beats a failure but a try. And this is the most non-invasive option to explore. If your child is diagnosed with GD and there are no other medical finding’s have them evaluated and see if they have some sensory issues. Then maybe you can work with the sensory and who knows maybe it will in turn help the GD. Maybe for some children there is more to it than just “normal development”. Maybe some children really do do it because of a reason. Maybe Katie’s the only one who seems to have GD / bowel movements connected. Who knows ….