Hi Denise

1) Did you only do voiding at first, or did you do both urination/defecation at the same time?
2) How long did you have your son sit each hour before letting him get off the potty?
3) Did you use pull-ups, diapers, or underwear with the timed method?
4) If you did use underwear, did you make him wear them for a few minutes to realize what "wet" feels like and correlate it to urinating?

1) He actualy had problems with his pooping that are very rare for kids w/ short gut. He had a lot of constipation and years of problems and many, many test. He had a probe placed during a colonoscopy that measured what his colon was doing. He interpreted the feeling -brought on by meds to contract the colon- as very painful, not an urge to go. It turned out he has celiac disease also, and that causes motility problems. That was really hard for him to endure (TONS of pain with all the adhesions from bowel resections). Anyways..sorry got off track . He learned to manage his stooling before his urinating, because of the constipation, he didn't have the same 'lack of sensation' problem.
2) He has ADHD, so sitting for long periods (any period of time actually ) doesn't happen. We usually asked him to try for for only a few minutes and had some sort of reward/incentive for him in the bathroom.
3)We used pull ups (actually the Target brand worked the best and was cheapest that we found).
4)We had quite a few trials with underwear and trying to get to feel the 'being wet' feeling. None of them worked for him, and he would just get more frustrated and embarassed. The urologist he sees-for hydronephrosis- said that he didn't feel any sensation, that would clue him in to needing to go, until the urine was actually coming out. He would then say I need to go. He was terrified of having accidents at school too.
He eventually developed that neuroogical connection, and could act on it, it just took much longer than for most kids.

<<Today he even told his penis to hurry up because he wanted to go outside and play-LOL!>>
That's too funny !!
Sounds like something Braden would say
<<Rees has very low sensitivity to things (such as pain)>>
So does Braden and I think it's a big factor
<<has had 4 major abdominal surgeries for severe reflux (very low abdominal tone/muscle strength)>>,
:'( did he need to have his fundoplications re-done ?
Braden had a fundoplication and many major abdominal surgeries-so he also has the same low tone/strength

Some days I was just happy that he could poop and pee at all , and some days I got so frustrated I wanted to scream !!
Most -maybe all w/ very few exceptions- people just didn't get the extent of his obstacles and how hard he was trying.
Our school principal basically dismissed the letters from his 3 GI doctors, his neurologist, his OT and his PT , his urologist and even the expert-Dr Schmidt. His main Gi doctor was so angry, he tried calling the principal several times, but she never called him back. They all said emphatically that he needed to have immediate and close accesss to a bathroom. They still put the first grade classrooms in a portable building that was legally too far from a restroom }> }> }> . They decided to give him an aide to help him get to the bathroom , and that just really embarassed him. Were they expecting the aide to swoop him up and run to the bathroom with him ??? Sorry I started on another tangent.
Hope I helped answer some of your questions.

Lorraine

Lorraine

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