AIBU to wonder what on earth is wrong with my child?

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My 13yr old daughter is having an issue with sickness. It started at school before the Easter hols, on a Monday. I had to collect her as she had been sick. 2 weeks of Easter hols & she was fine. Then school rang cos she felt very sick a week later on a Monday . 2 weeks later she had to come home again because she was sick, on a Monday. Then it was half term, she was at her dad's & was sick on the Tuesday. I spoke to the gp after that, who said it sounded hormonal or/& anxiety. She suggested changes to diet & changes to how she takes her meds.

She went on the pill in Feb because of very heavy periods & pains.
Monday of last week she was sick 2x at school.

I took her to the nurse who examined her & found nothing amiss. She did ask for urine sample & bloods checked just to make sure.

Now it's Monday again, & I've had to collect her from school for being sick again.
She says it's like motion sickness as it's much worse when she has to move.

I know it sounds like a school anxiety problem being every Monday (apart from the Tues in the hols) but she says she's happy at school, & does appear to be.

If it was a side effect of the pill would it only happen on Mondays? GP did not suggest stopping it.

I'm wondering if she's now anxious about being sick in school on a Monday & that is making her sick. She really wanted to be there for this afternoons lesson though.

I will be seeing the gp again - when I can get an appointment.
But wondered if anyone has experienced similar?

Doubt the pill is making her sick just on a Monday. Sounds very much school related and something that’s upsetting her when she’s there. Maybe she’s being bullied, avoiding certain lessons, avoiding a teacher, something to make an excuse or something making her genuinely anxious on a Monday.

Any update how your Dd is ? Hope she’s ok

Doctors putting a 13yr old on the pill for heavy painful periods is just so lazy - what they should be investigating is the root cause of the heavy periods such as PCOS, endometriosis. Things like this are why Endo routinely takes 7-10 years to be diagnosed - because GP's just use the pill as the answer to everything instead of properly investigating. Artificial hormones can have all sorts of side effects including depression, it shouldn't be taken lightly. I was put on the pill for heavy periods at a young age and looking back I wish I had not been. It caused me huge problems through my teenage years.

Couldn't agree more @Lightsoutlondon . The pill destroyed me mentally - I still can't take it now. And the cause of my painful, heavy periods was a giant ovarian cyst. Once it was removed, I was fine. But it didn't get diagnosed until it was dangerously large because nobody bothered to look into it.

Hope you get to the bottom of it, OP.

My daughter gets sick the week before she is due on and has lots of dizziness, she has just been given iron tablets because of her heavy periods. Maybe your daughter has low iron levels?

They really don’t know enough about the pill to be prescribing it so willy nilly to such young girls. No man would ever take something with so many long lasting side affects.

-What happens when she comes home? Is she able to do something that she isn't ordinarily allowed /given the opportunity to do? (even spending time with you?)
-She may be happy at school, but is there anything else happening, like a music lesson or some irregularity like she needs to walk home a certain way to meet you (or whatever)? She might be uncomfortable about some street abuse or a piano teacher's family member...

The pill made me terribly nauseous and sick. The doc who put me on it claimed it was nothing to do with the pill so I stupidly stayed on it for nine months. It messed up my general health, digestion and hormones for literally decades. It took a long period of natural and intensive treatments to regain my health. Please get your daughter off these horrible endocrine disrupters and then read the book, The Bitter Pill, by Dr Ellen Grant.

Is she dizzy? Could be an inner ear thing?

Oh come on, it works for so many, and not for some. Years of evidence.

It might not work for ops daughter but doesn't mean it didn't work for me or my daughters or many of my friends.

If the pill isn't causing any other problems I wouldn't go changing that, and then risk other side effects, as if it was the pill it wouldn't only happen on Mondays.

Will the school allow her to stay after vomiting. My dc child allowed this as it was clear it wasn't a sickness bug eventually was diagnosed with cyclical vomiting. Changes made it worse, so is Sunday food at a different time, different amount, special pudding or drink?

Motion sickness made me think of vertigo also (bloody awful thing it is).

Can still be the Pill making Anxiety worse! Which hits hard on Mondays. As someone who was on the Pill for Menhorragea and Dysmenoreha - I used to bleed theough my school uniform and go home 2 days off each month even when I started to work. As an adult I am sickned the Gp never sent to to a gynecologist to find the cause. Ultrasound / MRI - examination and tests etc. I ended up finding out the cause when I was 26 years old. Drs shouldn't
Just chuck pills at young girls until they have a proper diagnosis! I wish my Mother advocated for me. But now I am educated and aware I would never allow the same to happen to my DC.

They can say the Pill os safe etc. But sometimes there are alternatives.
The Pill can impact people negatively. Just read the insert.

And a Gp is just that General practitioner - not a specialist Gynecologist not an Endocrinologist.
P.s worked with Drs for years.

Google vestibular migraine. Migraines often have a pattern, such as first day back at school/work or first day of weekend so could fit

I'd try a gentle iron tablet with vitamin c and make sure she is having breakfast with it of a morning ( for heavy periods & help energy).. but it does also sound like the symptoms of vertigo as others have said. Just asking does she travel differently on a Mondays too school? My son gets horrible motion sickness even 10 min in a car upsets him an he feels dizzy & sick the rest of the day. ( fine on bike train etc). And that came on later after lockdowns age 11.

A pill (birth control) can do more harm then good

Dont pick her up from school everytime she is 'sick '

Talk to her. Something is up.

I think taking the pill on an empty stomach might be it.

Before you try switching to a different pill, try making her eat before she takes it, or have her take it at a different time of day.

At 13yo, she's old enough to understand that she needs to eat for health reasons, she can't indulge her lack of appetite because doing so has consequences. It's a difficult age, poor thing with so many things going on :( But, she needs to get a handle on it because soon it'll be GCSEs and she'll need to focus on that.

Buses give me vertigo. Does she travel on a bus to school?

I would hope she has been checked for pregnancy?
Another obvious issue is an ear disturbance - labyrinthitis for example? Feels horrible but is not serious.

Is there a classroom she is only in on a Monday and not other days? I worked with a colleague who couldn’t use a particular office because the combination of the lights in there and screens set her migraine off in a way that other offices (which seemed pretty similar to me) didn’t.

Agree. 100%. All those artificial hormones in a developing body, absolutely crazy.

This may not be at all similar but my 8 yo ds has had off and on stomach upset since Christmas that they can’t get to the bottom of.

Similarly, my dd years ago (so when she was much younger than your dd) had these episodes of sickness at school. Turned out to be a sensitivity to something in the school dinner making her vomit. Never happened again once we worked that out.

And then I had sickness like motion sickness over Easter and that was labrynthitis (which it appears I can’t spell!). Sorted with some tablets which I took for a couple of weeks.

So could be any number of things is what I’m saying!

Again, thank you for the replies..

I will Google all the suggestions.

I haven't picked her up every time, one time she felt very sick - Welfare phoned me. I asked them to keep her & she wasn't sick. Last week Welfare refused to send her home as they said they had sent too many people home! She was sick in school again after that. I picked her up at the end of the day as she felt too sick to walk - usually DD & DSS walk to fiancé's office & wait for him to finish work to drive them home, so it's not like she was avoiding getting on a bus.

I have usually had to go back to work so it's not about spending more time with me. Usually when she comes in she goes to bed, & sometimes vomits a few more times.

She is not making herself sick as I've been there when she has been sick.

She has a LAMDA exam tomorrow (which she did say she was a bit nervous about) but she really wanted to be in this afternoon for the last LAMDA lesson before the exam. She likes all the lessons she has on Mondays. She's always up to date with homework. She has good friends at school now, last year she didn't. She went to her secondary school knowing no-one, & Covid didn't allow mixing. She had no friends in Year 7 & hated school. Last summer term we got her counselling. Year 8 has been much better. She does usually talk to me about issues. But I will ask again

She does spend a lot of time on SM, usually talking to her best friend who lives in Russia. I do check her SM sometimes.

She isn't that active at weekends, so there could be something in that. She also doesn't go to sleep that early on a Sunday. She's put to bed before 10 but reads. I know I should get her into bed earlier if she's going to read.

I have lots of googling to do.

Sorry I keep writing such long posts.

Labyrinthitis does not show in an ear examination. It is diagnosed based on symptoms and history.
But if it really is only on a Monday then it sounds like stress or migraine linked to stress. You need to get to the bottom of why to solve this.

It could well be a combination of pill and migraines. The pill can trigger them.

Ask her about when she goes to lie down. Does she have to lie very still? I have labyrinthitis and if I turn or move the sickness starts. could be clues in how she deals with it.

You mentioned glasses. Are these just for reading? I have glasses for screen but if I wear them and move around I feel sick. I only wear for computer work and don't tend to bother at weekends so I could see how this might have a Monday connection if she's the same