Autistic teenage vegetarian daughter refusing prescription meds.

I am prescribed 210mg ferrous fumerate. I just checked Google and it says vegetarian friendly.
when I was in hospital the pharmacist calculated the difference in iron and Floradix. It was a lot!

But you can buy ferrous fumerate otc.

Next time her prescription is due ask for non gelatine capsules for vit D so at least it’s in place for a couple of weeks time.
I get 20 000iu vit D vegetarian capsules.

I'm autistic and vegetarian, and I wouldn't take tablets with gelatine either. That's not extreme, it's fairly standard vegetarianism. There are iron sprays or liquid iron she can take, or non-gelatine tablets.

Not eating foods that are not specifically labelled vegetarian is a separate issue. It might be an idea to go through the ingredients of processed foods and get her to look up anything she doesn't recognise or is worried about. 'Okay, you're concerned there might be a meat-derived ingredient in this - let's check.'

If it's a control issue, making her fear that you'll sneak non-vegetarian ingredients into her diet (however insignificant you think they are) will make it much, much worse. If she trusts that you're 'on her side' and want to help her eat a healthy vegetarian diet, respecting her choice, it'll be much less of a battle.

Could you discuss it with her as a religious belief? Muslims and Jews don't eat pork, but when a life is at stake that takes presidence.

With Judaism all other rules can be broken to save a life eg a woman in labour oh shabat can ask her husband to do something eg turning lights on/off that is normally forbidden.

Could you do the Joey and Phoebe swap from friends? You will take on her diet while she takes the pills?

I’m vegetarian due to actual (rush A&E level) allergies so I know that there are genuinely vegetarian versions available. I also have a Dd with sulfite allergies which makes prescription meds fun. The surgery pharmacist can send the prescription with vegetarian on the script, maybe that would help with your Dd seeing it written down? (My dd1 is also Audhd so I get the having to see it thing) This is a little bit more than her just being picky she genuinely needs the alternative so they will prescribe

You are pretty much describing me 🙈(audhd) I wish so much I wasn't like this, I don't want to be and it's so hard at times I get on my own nerves. Have a look at spatone and floradix, like pp have said some is better than none. Take the iron with /alongside orange juice or vitamin c to help with absorption. Supermarkets seem to be pretty good with putting v or vegan on their products.
Where's the pp found iron infusions for £100???? I've looked near my and it's more like 500-1k!!!!

Make sure she has vegetarian tablets - why are you being so difficult about this?

🙄

My GP prescribed me Aadfer- a liquid iron supplement. It is suitable for vegetarians and vegan.
It is supposedly chocolate flavour but tastes pretty bad- not at all like a sweet!

There is a German floral iron liquid supplement (not sweet) which I used to take when anemic during pregnancy. Try getting that?

I'm vegetarian and use a lot of nutritional yeast in cooking, it's really good for B12. I've had low iron over the years but swear by this, and also Floradix do a liquid iron which is really palatable. https://floradix.co.uk/product/floradix-liquid-iron/

So surely she must be vegan, rather than vegetarian?

I'd just tell a white lie that they were. I mean how much meat can there be in a tablet? Its just powders manufactured in a lab. I think?

Hi OP,

A lot of what you're saying sounds fairly straightforward veganism or nearly veganism.

My husband has been vegan for over 40 years and I've been vegetarian, nearly vegan for over 30 . Anyway I just wanted to reassure you that veganism done properly isn't unhealthy in itself. It does sound like your daughter is approaching an ED though

Our daughter is autistic and has strange eating habits.

I can recommend getting the advice of a dietician. They can work with the situation you have whilst you are working on changing it. I had a health condition that made me afraid to eat anything due to symptoms. The dietician turned things around for me by identifying things I could eat that would maintain my health, it was almost like she gave me permission to have things that I did not think were ok, but were good for me at the time e.g. a bowl of dry Rice Krispies was fine as a meal because it was fortified with the nutrients I needed and I could manage to eat it. The lessons I learnt from her I continue to use now even though I’m long past my health condition.
wishing you luck

Re “prescription strength” - she just needs to take whatever amount of the OTC ones that she’s comfortable are veggie adds up to the prescription. So if she’s prescribed 400mg vit D and the ones she will take are 200mg, she just takes twice as much.

Can she go get an iron infusion on the nhs and then b12 injection privately? Vitamin D can get veggie sprays rather than gummies (recommend one with K2 for absorption).

if she’s that deficient it could takes months of iron tablets whereas she will feel much better in a week from an IV infusion.

Obviously, no one can say from what you've said, but fear of contamination is absolutely a type of OCD, so maybe you could reach out to an OCD charity for some information and advice?

Step one is to get her her own plates? (Honestly, I’m also an autistic vegetarian and anxiety increases the need for control/micromanaging, if she feels safe around food so she can trust it then only then might she start to relax).

Can you ask her to research the long term affects of being anemic? It can be dangerous. It will make her periods heavier and then it’s a viscous cycle.
Would she accept an iron infusion?

All of those can be found without gelatine if you talk to the pharmacist.
However, I would suggest not doing that with your daughter there or being super careful to only discuss gelatine rather than vegetarianism, just in case the pharmacist helpfully points out that medicines are often only very dubiously vegetarian/vegan anyway - if not due to animal ingredients or manufacturing processes, also animal testing etc.