The medical name of the disease, which is called constipation in our society, is constipation. Constipation is found with a frequency of 25% in adults and 10% in children. In other words, one out of every 10 children has constipation problem. You are not alone.. Diabetes, which is stormed over, is seen with a frequency of 5% in the society. Constipation is actually a serious public health problem because it is so common.
To define constipation as everyone understands, it can be defined as not being able to poop regularly, having difficulty in pooping and this being longer than a certain period of time. If your child is pooping longer than once in 2 days, has pain and difficulty while doing it, and this process has lasted longer than a month, it means that your child has a constipation problem that needs to be treated.
Well, you may be wondering what will happen if it is not treated. In fact, if you're reading this article, you're having too much trouble with this subject to even ask about it. Constipation can lead to problems such as deterioration in the quality of life of children and sometimes their families, psychological problems and eventually loss of appetite and developmental delay. It can lead to serious financial consequences as well as health problems like this. The annual cost of childhood constipation in the United States is approximately $5 billion. In other words, constipation is both an individual and a social problem that can lead to serious financial and moral problems. In addition to this, in children with long-term untreated constipation, poop incontinence complaints may be added and the already bad clinical picture may be worsened.
What to do in the treatment? In fact, there is no magic recipe for this question that will suit everyone. As we have been saying more and more in recent years, there is no disease, there are patients. Unfortunately, treatment with only pill information obtained from the internet does not give satisfactory results. Each patient should be evaluated in detail and the treatment plan should be prepared specifically for the patient. However, the good news is that if a good treatment and follow-up program can be prepared, the majority of children can be successfully treated. The long-term treatment should be discussed with the family and the child, and the possible treatment process should be explained in detail.
The most important reason for treatment failure is the use of the same drugs in all patients at similar doses and without monitoring the results. In other words, the same drug is not effective in the same dose for every child. The effects of the started drug should be followed closely in the first days and weeks and the drug dose should be regulated dynamically. Another cause of failure is drug therapy alone in a child with a bowel full of poop due to severe constipation. In these patients, the intestines should be emptied with enemas if necessary, and drug treatment should be started after ensuring that intestinal evacuation is ensured. In this way, more effective treatment results can be obtained.
The problem is actually time constraint. In order to implement the treatment plan that I have tried to explain throughout the article, serious time must be spent with the patient and family. Unfortunately, in our country's health system, as there is not enough time to be allocated with the patients, drugs are usually prescribed and they are called for control after 1 month. For this reason, patients cannot be treated and the doctor is walking around. A team effort is required to provide effective treatment.
Keeping in mind that constipation is an important health problem that can cause serious problems, it is of great importance to provide effective treatment.
