daumblueMy inter­est in toi­let train­ing issues began many years ago. One of my chil­dren refused to toi­let train. My child was with­hold­ing and soil­ing (enco­pre­sis). The prob­lem felt like a curse upon my house.  Few col­leagues or friends under­stood our predica­ment; few­er spoke about it and there was no one to pro­vide guidance. 

Thus began my jour­ney to treat chil­dren with this con­di­tion and the devel­op­ment of my treat­ment pro­to­col for suc­cess­ful bow­el man­age­ment. Many fam­i­lies come to us in cri­sis with a child who can­not enter school, go to camp or expe­ri­ence the many oth­er joys of child­hood. Most have tried and failed var­i­ous treat­ments and have lived with frus­tra­tion and dis­ap­point­ment for months to years.

The treat­ment of soil­ing (enco­pre­sis) requires more than fol­low­ing friend­ly advice from oth­er par­ents, read­ing a book on toi­let train­ing or using lax­a­tives with­out ade­quate fol­low-up. Effec­tive man­age­ment and res­o­lu­tion of enco­pre­sis requires that an expert be avail­able to cus­tomize lax­a­tive ther­a­py and reg­u­lar­ly adjust behav­ioral strate­gies for each child.  Our approach relies on dai­ly feed­back and dia­logue with par­ents. We con­tin­ue work­ing togeth­er until we ‘get it right’.

Three years ago, my wife Michelle, a pedi­atric nutri­tion­ist, and I launched doctordaum.com, a remote con­sul­ta­tion pro­gram for fam­i­lies through­out the US and abroad.  Through telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion, our treat­ment pro­gram is avail­able for any fam­i­ly frus­trat­ed by with­hold­ing and encopresis.

The doctordaum.com jour­ney has become my long hoped for road trip across Amer­i­ca and around the world.  We have come to know so many won­der­ful fam­i­lies in the US, Cana­da, Europe, Asia and the Mid­dle East.  Watch­ing chil­dren re-cap­ture their child­hood and fam­i­lies heal has become the ful­fill­ment of my pro­fes­sion­al vision.  I am grate­ful to all the fam­i­lies who have put their trust in our approach and thank them for let­ting us into their lives.

Fred Daum, MD
Direc­tor, www.doctordaum.com

 

Share