Autistic teenage vegetarian daughter refusing prescription meds.

You’re welcome @DeQuin I hope you can find someone helpful.

I’ve sent you a pm @taratill.

Look, I get you want prescription strength, the point of that strength is to get the vitamin levels up fast as possible to prevent further damage or injury eg from dizziness and fainting.

buy some specifically vegetarian or vegan variants, speak with the doctor and discuss how many she can take of those safely and for how long. The GP can advise you there.

please note some of the vegan variants aren’t always tolerated well or take a lot longer to get levels back up that animal derived variants. I struggle with anaemia and have to supplement iron and B12 and the only way I can get iron levels up is with iron and b12 gummies and chewing them properly because the tablets cause me digestive issues. But you can worry about this later, more of a potential issue.

id also be very very careful as your DDs thinking right now is very precarious precursor to a potential Eating disorder though her regimented and strict rules would probably have her in that space right now and this also might be something you should discuss with the GP as a concern without her if possible

Just doing a bit of digging OP around iron supplements as I said I have to take high levels of supplements and they cost a fortune because I need the gentle ones, so I was really interested in your tablets above which are coming up as £1.90!!!

AI tells me (and I dont know if this is true) that my 50mg Bisglycinate (which cost a flipping fortune) contains 50mg elemental iron but the gluconate of 300mg contains 35g of elemental iron.

Dont know if anyone else on the thread knows about the differences between the elemental iron levels in various different types of iron names?

Just in case you find she gets an upset stomach from those

Talk to your pharmacist. They will be best placed to help with dietary restrictions for a whole host of reasons, whilst understanding what she needs for health.

That’s good news @taratill. I really hope your DD feels better soon.

Did you get the other supplements or was it just iron you needed?

I’ve just had another thought - when I had iron deficiency many years ago, I tried Ferro-Grad C tablets which are vegetarian/vegan and are slow release. I took one each night and didn’t get any of the horrible side effects I usually had from other iron tablets. The red dye is artificial. I’ve attached the leaflet which gives the ingredients in case it is any help. https://www.drugs.com/uk/pdf/leaflet/1081341.pdf

I don't think it's particularly strange for a vegetarian to want vegetarian medication, I think that's quite reasonable and you sound quite negative about it! I'm a vegetarian, I would ask for vegetarian medication.

Surely your role is to support her in gaining appropriate treatment around her beliefs? Rather than expect her to go against what she believes in?

My dd has anorexia and ARFID. Not diagnosed as she refused (was too anxious, possible undiagnosed ND) to deal with CAMHS and got herself signed off as soon as she reached 16. So I can well understand why you won’t go down that route.

You've had some brilliant advice about supplements from people, who really know their stuff. Once your dd’s levels are back to normal levels, I would think a decent multivitamin would be a good idea. I take Metagenetics, which is also a really decent brand and are labelled vegetarian. They sell on Amazon and do tablets for women and tablets for pregnancy. I think the main difference is the pregnancy have higher iron content and of course, folic acid. I have been giving these to my dd for a long time now.

if you have the funds to contact a dietician, I would go with someone specialised in eating disorders / disordered eating. This is a link to recommended dietitians. The list was collated by Jenny Langley, who has been working in ED for 20 plus years and co-wrote parental / carer workshops and books for loved ones with eating disorders. https://newmaudsleycarers-kent.co.uk/expert-eating-disorder-dietitians/ They should be well versed in dealing with parents and carers as it’s very common for people, who are ND not to be able to see there is an issue. As a result, their loved ones need to step in nudge them forward.

This brings me back to Jenny Langley, who has written a brilliant 5 part workshop for parents and carers on how to engage ED sufferers. She also does regular monthly carer groups. The workshops are run by various people at the Charlie Waller trust. https://charliewaller.org/mental-health-training-support/parents-and-carers/eating-disorder-workshops. I’ve attended two (the same thing), one run by Jenny and another by Catherine O’Dea Hughes. Both were excellent. These are currently funded by the charity and they ask for donations if you possibly can.

Jenny also runs a series of running individual workshops and recently wrote and delivered one on OCD. Jenny’s email address is on the new Maudsley website if you want to attend any workshops or the monthly carer’s meeting.

As for the OCD, someone from one of the workshops mentioned she did an excellent workshop with a company called OCD excellence.

As for our dd, we have been using and ED coach with dd for well over a year now. She isn’t local and was a recommendation on the long standing eating disorders thread. Dd has engaged minimally with her and I’m doing most of the work, acting both as her mum and performing a therapeutic role to guide dd to recovery. The coach worked for over 20 years as a mental health nurse in ED and therefore works with all elements of mental health, including OCD. She charges about the same amount as a dietician per hour. If you want her details, please let me know.

Floradix Liquid Iron and Feroglobin Liquid explicitly labeled as suitable for vegetarians