Medical Forum journalist Eric Martin was joined in the studio by Endoscopist, Paediatric Gastroenterologist and Hepatologist Dr Marcelo Leal – or Dr Marshmallow to his patients – to discuss the management of impaction and other pressing problems when a child presents to their GP with abdominal pain.
Dr Leal highlighted that the prevalence of functional abdominal pain in paediatrics was somewhere between 12% to 15%.
“So, I often say to the patients, if you’ve got chronic abdominal pain then in the latter half in your class of 30, there’ll be two or three other kids who are having the same sort of symptoms,” he said.
“They might not be talking about it. You might not know about it. But it’s still occurring.
“This is something which in practice I see can often be a little bit misdiagnosed or, particularly with the parents, they might not have been informed exactly what faecal loading or chronic childhood constipation actually is, and how it presents very differently to adult constipation.”
At PCH, Dr Leal is the clinical lead for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases and Cystic Fibrosis gastroenterology, an Honorary Research Associate at Telethon Kids Institute, as well as serving on the Scientific Management Committee for AREST CF, an early surveillance program for children with CF.
When not at PCH, Dr Leal consults from his rooms at Advanced GI WA.