Attention seeker? Or should I seek professional help?

[shazyt]

My 8year old daughter has constantly got an illness or ailment of some description! Every single day and quite often several times a day , she will have 'a tummy ache' or 'her lungs hurt' , her lips cut, she has the runs......... And so on and so on. The list is endless. And it's beginning to really drain me. So much so the sound of her voice irritates me! As everything she's says is negative.

This has been going on for many months and is getting worse as time goes on.
Her eating habits are rubbish, she's as thin as a twig. And has loose bowels quite often. But she is also a very anxious child too. Any advise???

Take her to the Dr!

Anxiety can cause physical symptoms like you describe, and if it were me I'd want to rule out anything physically serious, too.

Agree with PurplePidjin she needs to see a Dr firstly to rule out anything physical then to deal with the mental/emotional health issues you're describing.

Hope she feels better soon.

Re your irritation with her negativity, I know how you feel and do appreciate it is v draining but stick with it, your patience with her is a major factor in her support network.

What (if anything) has school got to say about her? Could all this 'being ill' be because she's not happy there?

I did wander about the school aspect of it. But she's doing really well at school and her behaviour is very good.

I've told her she has to go to the doctor if all these symptoms continue, to see if it is an attention thing, and when I do she seems to be ok for a short period of time.

I feel she is making it all up T the moment, it's hard to believe anything she says!

She so say had the runs on Friday and felt very sick, so I had to reschedule work to stay at home . When it got to 9.10 she was absolutely fine. Makes me so cross.:-(

I will definitely take her to the doctors, need to rule out everything first.
We used to take her for cranial therapy and it really was very helpful. May have to go back there.

Marking my place as dd is 9 and has anxiety.

Sorry, what's dd?

dd is Dear daughter or darling daughter

I have a hypochondria at home she is 10 and has Aspergers, I am not saying your Dd has aspergers but a big part of it is anxiety and hypersensitivity.

My Dd3 will roll around the floor over a microscopic injury and will vomit if she gets really stressed.

We use a mixture of humour and sympathy to get through the really bad days.

I would definitely get her checked at the GP, just out of interest does she have any issues with gluten as a gluten intolerance can make you feel really rubbish and upset your tummy.

Good luck

I would also want to establish why she feels she suddenly needs attention, what's changed?

Sorry that should have said

"I have a hypochondriac at home"

Do you have other children? Is there any reason why they might get/need more attention than her?

She sounds a lot like my 9 year old DD3. As well as being the middle child of 5 I have an anorexic teenage daughter and DD3 has been affected quite badly. My daughter will fake illness, injury, make herself sick, wet herself and a variety of other things that I think are largely about getting attention. She has been diagnosed with OCD and anxiety so I certainly think it would be worth getting your daughter checked out.

Thankyou all for you're input. I will be contacting drs tomoro. She is also having trouble sleeping. Definitely an anxiety issue, need to get to the bottom of this.

Yes I do have a younger son age 5 , he is very chilled and much easier work, my daughter does get quite jealous of him having attention, but that's nothing new.

When you took ur d3 to the drs did they need to do lots of blood tests?

No, no blood tests.