Teen Rebellion Basically Self Harm By Refusing Treatment- Help!

[RockinHippy]

Has anyone experience of, or ideas on how to fix the situation we now find ourselves in with DD17 who has hEDS, Pernicious Anaemia/B12 deficiency, D deficiency, Folate & Thiamine issues & probable HFA/Aspergers.

She has been extremely ill in the past, spent 2 years where a wheelchair was a good day & missed 2 years of school. We had a hell of a time with hospitals, schools etc as I'm sure many of you know too well & at times we felt we were losing her, it was that bad. Prior to that she was plagued with injuries, gut problems & allergies that along with resulting bullying, meant she's had a pretty rough time of it as a kid.

I researched the print off everything I could find, fought her doctors for tests & treatments, that alongside private dna testing & private blood tests actually got her diagnosed with the additional B12, D, Folate & Thiamine problems that treatment of got her out of a wheelchair in under 2 weeks. GP later identified a B6 problem too that contributed to mood swings & bad period problems. Some would be prescription, but research showed you could buy more effective versions, which is what we have done & it's worked better.

So in short she has a handful of supplements to take each day, much of which is treatment for diagnosed deficiencies caused by problems metabolising certain vitamins & minerals, or are needed to be taken with these vitamins for them to be able to work properly, or things to help her pain such as Curcumin & CBD. She's also previously had an excellent pescatarian non processed food diet. These have gone a long long way to getting & keeping her healthy & able to catch up in school, get good GCSEs & cope in college.

Only she's now refusing to take the supplements, reckons they do nothing for her & has pretended to take then when coaxed by her dad & I've just found a pocket full of several days worth that we thought she had taken. She's also not pacing herself well & generally running herself into the ground. She's demonic at the moment as I see her period problems flaring up again, has migraines again due to missing the feverfew that helps them a lot, frequently complains of worsened pain, has has 2 viruses & a very bad throat infection in the last 2 months & yet argues black is white that it has nothing to do with missing her supplements. I've had snipes that I imagine her frogging diagnosed conditions, bloody hurtful when we went through the FII when pushing for diagnosis & treatment for her & it was such an awful stressful time.

This general, "I'm fine" then getting herself into scrapes we have to drop anything to get her out of, spills over into other areas too


She's really scaring me, but it's hard to know how best to deal with it when she is 17

Help 😫

[RockinHippy]

Anyone 😐

[Ellie56]

Sorry you're going through this. The only thing I can suggest is make an appointment to talk to your GP in the hope they can suggest something or someone who can either help her, or to help you to cope with it better.

[BlankTimes]

Is there anyone else she'd listen to who could encourage her to take her meds? Someone who's not a parent - sorry but a lot of her attitude is likely just her age and not wanting to be told what's good for her, she thinks she knows best, don't they all at 17?

A trusted relative she looks up to, a close friend, a teacher?

GP (although some aren't very knowledgeable on natural products and could put her off taking them so tread very carefully there, mine won't endorse anything natural and insinuates it could be harmful as it's 'not been tested' or it's not approved by the NHS.)

Could she keep an honest and objective diary of detailed daily symptoms, how she feels with them, and without them, basically an in-depth self-study.
Hopefully that would be a record of her symptoms returning that after a while that even she couldn't deny.

You could do one at the same time for yourself, sometime when it's not so emotive, it would be interesting to see her view of herself as opposed to yours, it may help you to see how she sees and evaluates herself.

This general, "I'm fine" then getting herself into scrapes we have to drop anything to get her out of, spills over into other areas too

She's had a very hard time of things so far, not sure if you're aware, but if she has ASD, then many people with it have a large gap between their emotional 'age' and their chronological age, the ballpark figure is around two thirds, so if you consider she's emotionally around 12, would that help you to see her perspective any clearer?

[StillWeRise]

this sounds very hard but I think it's quite common for teenagers with chronic health conditions eg have heard this in relation to diabetes.
Is there someone like a practise nurse she could talk to? It needs to be taken out of the parent/child arena really, she is using this as a way to demonstrate her independence but without the mental maturity to assess what the risks are. Teenagers will always take risks and discount long term impacts, it's just how their brains are.

[figandmaple16]

So sorry you are going through this! I don't have a teenager myself, however DS has a health issue at the moment too and its hard with him, never mind a teenager!!
To be honest, it does sounds like teen rebellion, something every one of us has to go through. However, this case it could have perhaps more serious consequences.
It sounds like she wants to have more control, it could be with her body or it could be with some other aspect of her life and she is expressing it through controlling her meds. Have you asked why she feels she doesn't need it? As StillWeRise mentioned teenagers are risk takers, I remember when I was a crazy teen, my dad would just calmly ask me questions, in a non-condescending kind of way where he would wriggle out and make me see the flaws in my logic.
Have you tried any sort of therapy? Perhaps discussing it with someone else will help her, as others have mentioned.