Mum friend with possible munchausens by proxy

[Schooldinners1]

What would you do?

I can't go into all the details RN but it's been going on for years.

Constant doctorsce trips in different cities, requesting different hospital when one hospital won't believe here, unexplanable illnesses, lack of diagnosis, mystified specialists, sitting in GP surgery waiting room for hours, hospital waiting room A+E, lots of messages about it all sending people photos.

Teachers suspicious and saying “don't think it's constapation”, doctors refusing to write up letters she's requesting.

Blaming allergies that are unproven and reactions for bad behaviour and constapation for when he's naughty.

Says he can't join in sports or plays because of bib or costume and his “allergies”.

There is always a drama and she seems to get pleasure from telling people about it all. Longer it goes on it looks more and more like her own “accounts” of these things happening.

The doctors stopped listening at a point she then became addicted to the homeopath. Who kept giving “pills” she then kept paying for calls even when on holiday to shamanic therapist cause his behaviour was so bad.

I don't even know when she will stop.

one would hope. Yet I have seen incidences in a patient's life not being connected. Even at the same hospital.
Hopefully this child will get the help they deserve no matter whether the issue is induced illness or actual. What a tough situation for all involved

@ADHDDDDDDDBOOM it is exactly like the bruising example, actually. And being an allergy parent doesn't lend you any special ability to judge whether these concerns ought to be reported, despite your apparent belief that you have the right to be endlessly rude and insulting to childless allergy sufferers.

@GingerScallop Yes, unfortunately it is far from the case the HCPs will always join the necessary dots.

There have been multiple child deaths where concerns were not acted on. It's never wise to assume someone else is taking action. Safety and welfare of the child must come first.

I'm very concerned for the child actually, whenever I've met him he is just not how she portrays but more of a typical boy who has his moments. Never seen all the problems she says he has.. Nor have others just the results of his meltdowns.

She speaks of him and sees him totally differently as if he is totally incapable of doing things himself or thriving.

Like there is always some big issue she has to fix and if a child is constantly told there is something wrong with them and gets attention from it they will probably start believing they're seriously ill after a life being told this.

I used to play hockey and kickboxed for a while. I was good at relocating my shoulder (knee, ankle, collarbone at the AC joint, fingers, wrists, hip was trickier, though). I figured that, seeing as I was going to be in pain either way and a hospital relocation wasn't needed often, due to being so good at doing them myself, sometimes it was just fucking worth it. It was definitely more enjoyable than the dislocations I got when I stood up from sitting watching the other kids have all the fun and my bandaging of assorted joints was a thing of fucking beauty by the time my Brownie pack did the First Aider's Badge.

No, it's not treated by faith healing or any of that shite. No more than Psoriatic Arthritis, Coeliac Disease or POTS are. But people with EDS certainly can and do play all manner of sports. We're not all the wheelchair using zebras of the internet.

More deaths due to SS being busy investigating those who aren’t doing anything except trying to get their dc the support/diagnosis /EHCP etc they need meanwhile all the poor children we see beaten to death and neglected in the news weren’t even properly checked.

We had a full child protection investigation and on one occasion the SW said ‘hang on I just need to get my phone out and put it on loud as I’m the duty worker and I’m case there’s an emergency’ and in that moment I thought ‘she’s here - nothing is wrong , the dc aren’t being harmed in any way and there will be be other children who are being harmed and not investigated while they are wasting their time on us’ they were clearly stretched as it was , I almost felt guilty and it wasn’t my fault

@NeverDropYourMooncup I am well aware that people with EDS can play sports, and I am no fan of the zebra shite myself either. But in this case the OP is describing a child who needs a wheelchair (which as your post hints at, most EDS patients actually shouldn't be using) according to the parent, and yet also plays rugby, when contact sports for a patient with severe EDS would be contra indicated.

@Greenleafgirl I'm sorry you were mistakenly accused but that doesn't mean anyone with suspicions of MbP/FII shouldn't report it. It is a very serious situation and does need to be investigated.

Genuine cases of MSBP are extremely rare but can be fatal. Understandably SS cast the net wide to catch those cases but in doing so they end up punishing parents who are doing nothing wrong.

The guidance needs updating. Im aware that recently Cathie Long and BASW put out something updated which was helpful but sadly many LA are using outdated guidance. Once is alleged it spirals so quick and nobody is prepared to then take the risk that it’s not actually FII/MSBP and families are ripped apart and genuinely ill children removed which is hugely traumatising and wrong

It doesn't matter the NHS systems are integrated so the dcs care record will go across different hospitals. It's all on there so doctors will see she's been flagged as anxious.

@Greenleafgirl As previously covered in the thread, we actually don't have a good sense of how rare it is, partly because it's such a rapidly developing field. It certainly doesn't reflect the view of all experts to claim it's extremely rare. The intersection of MbP/FII with the probably much more common factitious or induced illness (not imposed on someone else, "just" on oneself) is really complicated, and the way that the latter has completely exploded (with MBI) online over the last twenty, but particularly the last ten, years means that the implications for MbP are something of an uncharted territory.

@Feefee10 They are not fully integrated, unfortunately.

I found this - it’s extremely rare

I think that was from 2019 so the most recent I could find.

It’s so much more likely that children in these situations genuinely have medical issues and not parents trying to harm them or lie about them

I've been ignoring your messages since you accused me of that the first time because I can tell this is an issue for you that is very painful and projecting it on to others, in this case, me.
I would appreciate it if you ignored mine too. I will not refer to you or your posts from now on. Please do the same with mine.

Thank you.

I'm sorry but that isn't a high quality source. It really seems like you're not quite understanding what I'm saying, have you read any of Dr Feldman's writings?

@ADHDDDDDDDBOOM I'm not projecting anything onto you. I take issue with your deeply insulting behaviour on this thread. Feel free not to reply if you don't want to; I don't feel you have added anything to the conversation since all you have done is urge OP not to report a child welfare concern.

Yes and I’m not convinced by him at all. I’m the same way I’m not convinced by Danya Glaser. I think there are some ‘professionals’ who have seen FII as a way to make money by presenting themselves as ‘experts’ and saying it’s commoner than it really is

Please please please report it. To police or social services.
If it is FII, it can take a long time for the dots to be connected. If it isn’t FII then the family will be offered support if needed. Don’t take a risk of doing nothing. It’s not incredibly rare; I worked in a small department which covered half a county and we had 2 FII cases running at the same time so it does happen.

Has been assessed for ASD? The combination of behavioural, schoolwork and (even digestive problems if they are genuine) would cover that.

It sounds like it could be a complicated picture of anxiety and mental illness in the mother (and possibly lack of intelligence and/or education) + unspecified developmental issues in the son.

@Greenleafgirl And yet something that you spent two minutes Googling is a valid source...

I'm sorry, but tinhatting mistrust of genuine experts is not a reasonable response.

So... why are you not escalating your concerns? You could talk to a teacher at school, report to SS, call the NSPCC for advice, drop a note into the GP surgery. You could talk things through with a trusted friend who knows you both and see if they share your concerns or think you're just being a gossipy troublemaker. Or perhaps you could even discuss it all with the mum herself and see how she's actually feeling: worried stupid about her DC, worried about herself and her mh, driven round the bend by the medical help she's (not) getting, addicted to the attention of alternative practitioners? If she really is a friend, don't you want to get a clear steer on how it is for her?

Muncheusen’s by proxy is closely related to sociopathy. This would mean that she wasn’t actually anxious and that it was all a show.

If she’s genuinely worried it’s more likely to be health anxiety.

It sounds like MbP to me. Partly because if it was health anxiety she’d probably be anxious about causing psychological harm to her child.

Do you know that prior to my experience I’d have agreed with you but I had so many ‘professionals’ lying about us and ironically fabricating evidence and have heard of many others in the same situation that it can’t be a coincidence. It’s an absolute scandal .

Im not saying MSBP doesn’t exist. What I’m saying is that parents are being wrongfully accused of it frequently and it’s always the same condition that are ‘red flags’ (EDS, digestive issues and allergies, pots, autism, adhd, failure to thrive/needing tube feeds in infants, allergies). What is alarming is that complaining is also a red flag. So they are effectively blocking accountability.