It's No Accident: Breakthrough Solutions To Your Child's Wetting, Constipation, Utis, And Other Potty Problems

We've been working with our kid's pediatrician and a GI specialist to sort out potty problems he's been having for quite some time. One doc says he's constipated, another says he isn't. Tried what all the docs had been recommending without seeing improvements. Came across this book while researching anything else I could do to help a kid having behavior-related potty problems and it was eye opening. I didn't understand what's going on inside of my kid's body and what may be actual causes of his problems. While most of the advice in this book was in line with what our doctors recommended, I learned a lot about the body and biology that I didn't already know and that helped us make more informed decisions with our son's care. After finishing the book and consulting with his GI doc we tried a new clean out method, which was successful for us on the first try. Without a doubt, this book educated me to the point I felt better capable of helping my child work through such a challenging issue. We aren't out of the woods completely but the insights and recommendations here were so valuable to us.

Here is a three bullet-point version for the TLDR crew. (TLDR = Too Long, Didn't Read)1. This book has answers when it comes to the cause of bed wetting. Simple is so genius.2. For some cases that may even seem to be extreme, enemas and other laxatives may not even be needed. Magnesium supplementation may be enough to fix the situation entirely in a as little as a week. "Most magnesium supplements are junk" might be too strong, but ones like Natural Calm found on Amazon are very effective and (most) kids can at least learn to enjoy them.3. The book mentions switching to soy milk as an alternative to the constipation-inducing cow's milk. Intolerance is mentioned as a possibility of cow's milk producing bowel problems. While soy may help with constipation problems, it comes with its own set of problems that I would personally consider to be worse than constipation. Get educated on both sides of the argument and make a decision. I think that a majority believes soy to be a healthy food, so here's a book with an opposing viewpoint:  The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food Now for the long version.What i've learned from this book has saved our family a great deal of frustration and rid us of bed wetting. Constipation has always been a concern of our since our now four-year-old son started pushing out his rectum when he was two years old. It's a quite frightening thing for all parties involved, but it's no party. Three doctors didn't have an answer, so we went the guy that everybody says is the best doctor within hours of our area. He said that our boy would grow out of having the problem and he prescribed a spoonful of cod liver oil every day to help lube things up a bit. I was surprised when it "worked". The sad part of this part of the story is that since then my son has been terrified of using the bathroom. Who can blame him after that awful experience?Fast forward two years and we find out that it still didn't fix the problem. He didn't grow out of it after all. Having recently been forced to overcome a year-long illness by studying and trying things out on my own, I was a great deal more prepared to find an answer this time. I knew there had to be a simple cause with a simple answer, but didn't know where to find it. I only found this book because I was getting tired of the bed wetting problem. We had been changing sheets for two kids every day for what seemed like an eternity. After reading the first couple chapters of this book I was able to link up the increase in bed wetting with the rectum popping out again. This book showed me the simple cause. My wife is a nurse, and she knew about all of the available laxative and clean out options and let me know the concerns with each of them. We both wanted a simpler solution.I previously would have thought this next part was unrelated, but stay with me and I'll bring this full circle. A friend of mine was having some gall bladder issues recently, so I started scouring for helpful information. Most doctors had basically given up hope for fixing gall bladder problems. There were treatments available, but in the end the doctor planned on having to remove the gall bladder anyway. I remembered reading in several different places (some that I would consider "credible" and others that I generally wouldn't.) that almost none of us eats enough magnesium-rich food, especially compared to our ancestors of thousands of years ago. (I also noticed that Dr. Hodges makes a reference to dietary differences from thousands of years ago in chapter two.) Increased magnesium intake was recommended as a treatment for gall bladder problems.The month before I started reading this book, I started having my own problems with a painful gall bladder. After studying the safety of magnesium supplements and fillers used in most of them, I ordered some Natural Calm magnesium supplement right here on Amazon. You can go read the many positive reviews of the product. It worked that way for me, too, and as an added bonus, it helped relieve my gall bladder problem. I'd say the problem is fixed. (at least for now) As an added bonus of the magnesium, there was no more constipation in my life. Wonderful!So there I was a couple months ago enjoying my magnesium supplement as a gift from heaven and then I read this book. I decided to share my magnesium drink in small amounts with my kids. It seemed to do nothing for several days. Four days later, the kids each had four or five sessions in the bathroom. The next day, my son was using the bathroom on his own without anybody even mentioning it. He would just disappear and I'd look for him and find him doing his business. Remember, this is the kid who was pushing out his rectum and frustratingly wetting the bed and filling diapers only a week earlier. Since that day five weeks ago, he has not wet the bed once. Nor has he been scared to use the bathroom at all. My six-year-old has had the same improvements with no longer wetting the bed.The research in this book has really helped us fix some major frustrations in the family. I didn't use the same fix as is recommended in the book, but it is working great for us. I'd love to see more people's results using Magnesium instead of other laxatives.Magnesium could kind of be viewed as being a laxative, I suppose. In the bowel, its use is very similar to the way that MiraLAX is described in the book. It helps regulate water and promotes peristalsis to keep things moving normally. The other great benefit is that, unlike MiraLAX which doesn't enter the blood stream according to the doctor, it's a great thing for the magnesium to be absorbed into the bloodstream. It helps build strong bones and teeth and is supposed to help us use our calcium better. I see nothing wrong with that.You have to finish every health experience or health claim aimed at helping others with one important caveat. Individual Variation is always present, so this may not be the answer for everybody.As for what I mention about soy, above. You need to do your own research on soy before you try to accept soy into your diet at all. The "soy battle" is quite an emotional / political / almost religiously tenacious one, but the scientific studies against soy are many.  The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food  is only one book of many that shows mounting evidence against soy. I definitely recommend reading both sides of the argument before you start drinking soy milk every day and make yourself sick ten years (or however long) down the road. I really must make it clear that I don't recall Dr. Hodges recommending that people drink soy milk every day in this book. Emphasis on the "every day" He doesn't give a frequency. He only mentions that drinking soy milk instead of cow milk seems to help some people and he provides a couple of simple recipes for smoothies with soy milk or nonfat dairy milk. Personally, I'm in the "soy sucks" crowd.Finally, please don't join the crowd of people who hate others because of their difference in opinion. Read up on both sides of the argument and make your own decision and stand by it. I'm of the opinion that it would be best if we could stand by our opinions and decisions without hating others for coming up with opposing views. If only we could have a worldwide movement toward acceptance as strong and consistent as this book will help other kinds of movement. :)

[Updated/Revised 3-26-14]: Until recently, first-grade daughter had never been dry at night. For years we were told not to worry about it, and that children eventually grow out of it. But she had reached an age where it was upsetting to her, and recently she had to turn down her first sleepover invitation because she was embarrassed about wearing nighttime pullups.It may be true that most kids do eventually grow out of bedwetting. But this book makes a compelling argument that, in most cases, there is an underlying cause that (A) can be easily addressed (thus leading to a complete resolution of the problem); and (B) could turn into a much bigger problem if left untreated for too long. If that's the case, then we do a disservice to our children by just "waiting for them to grow out of it." Months and years go by; the child feels embarrassed despite the parent's best efforts to reassure her; and the underlying problem gets worse and and worse. If there's a practical, step-by-step solution to the problem -- and if that solution could spare your child years of discomfort -- then every parent and pediatrician should be aware of it.Before reading this book, it never would have occurred to me that my daughter had issues with constipation, because she pooped regularly without obvious strain or discomfort. But I now realize that she had almost all of the signs of a different kind of constipation -- what might be described as "a big ball of poop" blocking her lower intestines and placing pressure on her bladder. It explains the nearly nightly bedwetting, the frequent mild stomach aches, and so on. We talked to our pediatrician about the book, and she gave us the go-ahead to try the Miralax cleanout described in the book.The following is a quick chronology of our experience so far:October: We did the Miralax cleanout. (Note that Dr. Hodges recommends doing the enema regimen if at all possible, as he believes this to be the most effective treatment for most kids. But, initially, my daughter was extremely resistant to the idea of an enema, so we opted for the Miralax cleanout instead.) Although I was prepared for it to be an unpleasant and messy weekend, it was actually pretty easy. We explained everything to my daughter and told her that we would have a family weekend at home, with lots of games and movies. She finished the Gatorade/Miralax mix early Saturday afternoon, and the cleanout was finished by Sunday evening. After the cleanout, she was dry every night for 3 weeks -- something that had never happened before. Our daughter was ecstatic.After a few weeks, the bedwetting began again. We learned, through Dr. Hodges and a pediatric GI, that her colon was filling up again because it had lost its tone from years of being packed full (not sure how to say this in a less gross way). Dr. Hodges suggested trying the enema regimen, or -- if that was not possible -- doing monthly Miralax cleanouts plus smaller daily doses of Miralax. The goal was to prevent her colon from getting backed up again, and therefore to allow the colon to shrink back to its normal size.November - January: We did the monthly Miralax cleanouts for a little while. After each cleanout, she would be completely dry for a few weeks. However, a an x-ray confirmed recently that the "big ball of poop" is still there. So, although it did seem that the monthly Miralax cleanouts were clearing out some of the back-up (resulting in a few weeks of dryness each time), I thought they might not be enough to clear the problem completely.March: On the advice of Dr. Hodges and our pediatric GI, we switched to the enema regimen -- which is what Dr. Hodges describes as the most effective option. It did take some effort to convince my daughter to try this, but she was fine with it after the first time. She's been dry every night so far, and we all feel very optimistic. I will try to remember update again in a few months, once I have a better idea of our progress. [NOTE: Please see the comments below, for the long-overdue update.]In a way, it's hard to believe that the answer to these years of bedwetting, and the worry and embarrassment that my daughter had been feeling, was this simple. The premise of this book is so sound -- rooted both in common sense and methodical scientific research -- and the advice is so universal that I think every parent should read it. I also really, really wish that more pediatricians were familiar with this book, or at least with the research underlying it. The problems addressed in this book are extremely common and cause so much stress, discomfort, and embarrassment to so many children. Left unaddressed, these problems can become much more difficult to treat. And yet the solution, in many cases, is so simple. This information, and the solutions offered, should be at every pediatrician's fingertips.

Great book

This book is simply amazing and should be compulsory reading for all GPs, Paediatricians and Gastroenterologists!My daughter was failed by so many doctors who could easily have diagnosed her straight away had they read this book.Sadly constipation is widely misunderstood by medical professionals.My only niggle with this book is that it is written for the US market, so refers to the American drug names. In case it helps anyone, my understanding is that:* one dose of MiraLAX is the same as two sachets of Movicol Paediatric, except that Movicol has added electrolytes so you don’t need to mix it with Gatorade (which they dowith MiraLAX in the US when they use it for a clear-out).* Ex-Lax contains senna (1 square of chocolate Ex-Lax is the same as 10ml Senokot Syrup).

The book says many children are being reported as having their constipation issues missed. They are getting treated for the side effects but doctors are missing the actual cause. Things like bed wetting can also be caused by a constipation issueI bought this book after our daughter went to hospital after holding poop for 3 weeks and it helped explain the process and time it will take for her bowels to get back to normal.

I cannot recommend this book more highly!Dr Hodges' explanations are clear and easy to understand. His humour brings a smile to a tricky subject.Reading Dr Hodges' book increased my understanding and provided solutions to my child's struggle with constipation and urinary (in)continence-a huge relief after years of misery and frustration.I had been sure that my child's 'wetting' wasn't 'just due to behaviour' and that it, UTI's and constipation were somehow linked.Finding his book gave me the confidence to persist in getting appropriate help.I really wish I'd had this book years ago, and would highly recommend it to any parent potty training their child, particularly if things begin to seem difficult. I would also recommend that ANY staff/medics involved with kids read it! (In fact I reckon it should be COMPULSORY reading for those involved with children!!)

Bought this after seeing a recommendation. My child has issues with constipation and though written for wetting this is linked. The book has been a life saver after following advice we are now dry day and night and no soiling accidents. If your having issues and no support from medical professionals this book is for you, it has transformed our life.

It explains so many things and it means we have some work to do. Unfortunately it's American based so things like X rays are just not going to happen on the NHS and drugs are different names, but it is well worth reading.