why we have gone back to Miralax--temporarily

[Guest guest]

I haven't posted in several years, though we've been continuing our struggle.

Finally, we turned back to Miralax as a temporary measure, because when we tried

to do a cleanout for a colonoscopy, it turned out that our eight-year-old had

impacted stool the size of a football stuck in her colon. It had to be manually

removed and she was never able to have the colonoscopy. So we are using Miralax

(along with Ex-Lax) now for a few months to ensure that her colon has time to

drop back down to its normal size.

I'm not happy with giving her Miralax, but:

1. It's the lesser of evils right now.

2. I finally figured out that with Miralax, it is definitely safer to take a

higher dose than a lower dose, because (I think) less is absorbed if the colon

is staying clear and things are moving along. I DO think that it is dangerous

and very much so if you take it in small amounts without getting impactions to

ever fully clear. Because then you've got it just sitting there in the colon,

getting absorbed a little at a time, possibly through a leaky gut. I don't think

this stuff should even be available over the counter -- and when she took it

without being cleaned out, in other words when she took it behind an impaction,

we did see some worrisome side effects. But not so now that she's cleaned out.

In fact --

3. Since the cleanout, her energy levels are much higher and she's in a good

mood most of the time--compared to almost constant crankiness and irritability

before.

4. I took some time to check out recent studies of Miralax and children on

Scirus (a search engine for scientific journals), and discovered that there have

been a lot more studies since I initially took her off Miralax back in 2004--at

that time, it hadn't really been studied in children. Also, I found that

polyethylene glycol in some form is being used by neurologists as a cutting edge

treatment for improving the speed of neuronal repair in cases of spinal cord and

brain injuries--not sure what to make of that, but it's rather fascinating and I

wonder if it will turn out to be potentially useful for repair of damaged

neurons in the digestive track. But that's only my speculation.

5. Nobody EVER wants to take a drug or have their child take one. But at times

it ends up being necessary despite the side effects. I'm never one to take a

drug or give one to my kids if I can possibly avoid it. But, I went through a

divorce and remarriage, and married someone who has a medical condition that

depends on him taking a prescription regularly that in some people would have

strong side effects, but for him is absolutely necessary to survival. And it has

changed my outlook on drugs to some degree.

I don't know where we will go from here or if my daughter's condition will

improve enough to get her off Miralax. But I will say this one last thing--I

don't think doctors have the ability to cure her. But I think that if this

Western approach can keep her colon clear long enough for my natural/nonWestern

methods to have a chance to work, then that is what may in the end cure her. And

do you know what I think will ultimately cure her? Energy work such as reiki,

BodyTalk, and using essential oils. Because I think that her condition was

caused by stress or by picking up the stress of people around her (living with

parents who were heading for a divorce for her whole life). Consequently, I

believe that taking the approach of relaxing her nervous system CAN work -- but

only now that her colon is clear, because before, I don't see how the subtle

relaxation effects of reiki and aromatherapy could have competed with that large

impaction. I think we needed Western medicine to intervene before nonWestern

medicine could cure. Though I don't know yet if that is what will happen.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this. For those who are

wondering, yes, we tried milk of magnesia (couldn't get it into her

consistently), yes, we tried all sorts of other magnesium-based options, yes, we

tried homeopathy, yes, we tried going gluten-free and dairy-free, yes, we tried

playing with fiber intake, yes, we tried chiropractic care (which was helpful),

yes we tried probiotics and enzymes (still take those), yes, yes, to all of

that. And I still recommend those other options to anyone I know who is going

through this because they can help. But sometimes you just have to break the

cycle first before all those gentle subtle ways of intervening can have a chance

to work.

Bonnie