New Here - Anyone NOT Go After Barium Enema

I don’t think my son has hirschsprung’s disease, but I thought someone here might have some advice for me. I’m the mother to a 2 year old boy. He passed meconium late at birth, but not too late, I think sometimes into the second day. He was breastfed exclusely for nine months and had issues with repeated mucus and blood in his stool. He was treated by GIs and an allergists for suspected milk/soy allergies and I went on an extreme elimination diet. When I started solids with him at 9 months, the true constipation began. And it got terrible at 15 months when he weaned.

He’s now two and is one huge doses of Miralax a day. At 9 months he was found to have a bit of anal stenosis (like a ring structure inside the anus). But that seems to have resolved. Now he can’t pass stool unless it’s liquid. Even very soft stool comes out in teeny tiny amounts (like bottle cap size) and that progresses into a HUGE stool that needs glycerin or an enema to come out which is very VERY painful for him. He has popped fissures after bad bouts of the constipation.

He just had a barium enema done today and it seems like atleast upper level Hirschsprung’s was ruled out. They might do some biospies lower to rule it out more in the rectum.

But my question is that he withheld the barium. The radiologist seemed concerned and surprised and my son’s GI office was also concerned. Finally two hours after the enema, he did pass some of it, but they were all surprised that he didn’t immediately go. I am convinced that whatever the reason for his inability to have a bowel movement (he can’t go unless it is diarreah) is the same reason he held in the barium.

Has anyone ever heard of something like this? I’m going to give enemas for the next few days to try to get all the barium out because they are concerned about it getting very solid if it doesn’t pass. It just seems so strange and I feel like I’m banging my head against walls with all these tests and no answers and he just can’t go.

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HI, I would also suggest the biopsi. It is trully the most reliable way to diagnose Hirshsprung. My son had ALL the tests done but only the biopsi determined it WAS Hisrchsprung.

Also, barrium is known to be a constipator so if your son already has problems, the barrium could have just blocked up

This was exactaly my son except by the time he had a barium done he was already septic and the only way it would come out was by vomiting. Definately get a full thickness biopsy done. My son’s story is very simular to yours and he was diagnosed with Hirschsprings at age 4.5 years old. Because the constipation went on for so long his colon was stretched out and they had to remove more than just the HD parts.

Good luck!

My son did pass his meconium at birth but does have Hirschsprung’s and has 11cm removed. He passed small (soft) ribbon like stool the entire time leading up to his surgery at 3.5 weeks. There is one other member on this board that I know of whose son had a really late diagnosis. Hopefully she will chime in on her experience. I would definitely go for the biopsy but I think many people would recommend a ‘full thickness biopsy’.

Blood in the stool while being breastfed would send up a huge red flag for me. Obviously something was seriously wrong. I think the most frustrating part is waiting for answers…I hope you are able to get a diagnosis soon!

Jo

Thanks everyone. I gave two enemas so far and he seems to have finally passed most of the barium. The radiologist and his GI had me pretty freaked out because they said the barium would turn to “cement” if it wasn’t passed. Great…

He did have diarreah from the enemas I gave and some mucus and tiny specks of blood, so I am waiting for a call back about that. It’s unfortuantely not usual for him to have blood because he gets fissures from the constipation, but I just want to make sure the mucus is normal.