Rare diseases · Sign or symptom
Bowel incontinence
Loss of bowel control
HP:0002607
What it means
Involuntary fecal soiling in adults and children who have usually already been toilet trained.
In everyday care
Most people with this sign do not have a rare disease — it appears in common conditions far more often. These general reference pages cover the same topic:
Rare diseases that can present with this40
Common30–79%
13- Adrenomyeloneuropathy
- Autosomal recessive spastic paraplegia type 23
- Childhood disintegrative disorder
- Huntington disease-like 3
- Infant botulism
- Mitochondrial membrane protein-associated neurodegeneration
- Mowat-Wilson syndrome
- Mowat-Wilson syndrome due to a ZEB2 point mutation
- Mowat-Wilson syndrome due to monosomy 2q22
- Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease
- Pouchitis
- Spastic paraplegia type 2
- Wild type ATTR amyloidosis
Sometimes5–29%
21- 22q11.2deletion syndrome
- Adult-onset distal myopathy due to VCP mutation
- Alexander disease
- Autosomal dominant spastic paraplegia type 12
- Autosomal recessive spastic paraplegia type 35
- Classic bladder exstrophy
- Congenital sucrase-isomaltase deficiency
- Distal 22q11.2 microdeletion syndrome
and 13 more in this range
The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.
Part of the broader category
Also called: Anal incontinence · Faecal incontinence · Fecal incontinence
Tracking symptoms like this for someone? Eleplan keeps symptoms, diagnoses, medications and every specialist in one plan.
Start free with EleplanThis page uses the Human Phenotype Ontology (2026-06-23) — Human Phenotype Ontology Consortium, hpo.jax.org. Disease associations from Orphanet (INSERM), CC BY 4.0. Content is educational and is not medical advice.