The Great Miralax Debate

Having a kid with a GI tract that closely resembles the BQE on a summer Friday is stressful. Feeling conflicted about the treatment of that traffic jam is even worse. One oft-prescribed solution is Miralax. In the last decade doctors have taken to recommending Miralax to kids for quick relief, and to that end, it works like a charm. You and your sad, stopped-up counterpart, need quick relief, otherwise a cycle of holding poop and painful poop can compound the problem (or compact it, ick). The criticism of Miralax is this, there have been no conclusive studies of its longterm effects on children, and, more importantly, it doesn’t deal with the underlying cause. Like basically every parenting challenge, the key here is a shift in lifestyle, a permanent change to Sorrento’s or Nile’s diet. I say permanent because often, if the doctor suggests temporary changes, we lazy types, who are used to immediate gratification, try something for two weeks and then decide, humpf! It doesn’t work. But what if you are a good doobie, you go balls to the wall on this diet thing and nothing happens? You cut out anything starchy including apples, bananas, rice, bread, pasta, potatoes of all varieties. You eliminate excess milk, add fiber, up the water intake, incorporate “P” fruits into ever meal, push citrus like you are a Florida lobbyist, add flaxseed oil to pear sauce, and still there are tears when a deposit needs to be made. This is what happened to me, from the day the kid started solid food until age three. The doctors, who I love and trust, kept going back to the diet, not fully convinced I was doing everything I could. Cut out dried fruit since it pulls too much moisture from the system. Cut out yogurt (she always refused yogurt anyway). Put her on a probiotic. The kid went Paleo before anyone. Eventually the doctors decided Miralax was the way to go, but insisted I keep the duration of treatment short and include a slow weaning process. Every time I tried to cut down, no matter how slowly, things went bad. Hemorrhoids-bad. Anal-fissures bad (for her sake we will pretend we never had this conversation). We, her parents and doctors, had to accept that she just needed to be on Miralax (and mineral oil) in an ongoing fashion. The weaning process started at two and a half and took at year. Yes, you need to go that slow. And now, my girl is Miralax-free, and eats healthier than I do. In our organic, let-your-body-be-your-guide era, I felt incredible guilt and frustration that I couldn’t find a more “natural” way to help my girl. But her body needed Miralax. Sometimes, the sh*t-kicking chemicals are what we need. Thanks science! (Though I’m still pretty sure raw honey is a magical healing potion).

[this post first appeared on A Child Grows in Brooklyn]