should you indulge imginary illnesses?

[micci25]

my dd1 has had 'poorly achey feet' on a night for quite a while now. she wakes up screaming and wont calm down and wont tell you what is wrong immediately either. when you eventually do get her calmed she says that she has 'poorly achey feet'.

i have found that the best way to deal with it is to rub lavander body lotion onto her feet and tell her that it is 'magic foot cream'. if you tell her feet dont hurt she screams louder. i only started with the lotion because i thought it was just a phase that she would grow out of, but it has been going on for a year now. i mentioned the feet to the doctor while getting something else checked out and he thought drowing pains maybe? had a look at her feet and assured me that she was fine.

i recently stopped with lotion and let her scream it out hoping that it will stop. and i told her that i know there is nothing wrong with her feet and that its not nice to lie about things etc. the feet werent mentioned again.

this morning (4:30am) she came into my room crying and waking me, dp and dd2 saying that her sunburn was hurting and would i go and get the aftersun! it wasnt that sunny here yesterday and she is not even pink let alone red!!

i told her to go back to bed and that she no sunburn. she cried more and on realisng that she had woken dd2 decided to get into her cot with her. after a lot of shouting and dp whinging that he had to be at work and could i sort her out . i got her into my bed with dd2 and dp went to dd1s room. so no one got any sleep!

dp wants to take her to the doctors about her 'imaginary illnesses' i think that is unnecessary. if i had put aftersun on her she would have gone to bed but surely this is reinforcing her behavior and teaching her it is okay to make up illnesses to get attention when she wakes in the night!?

but how do i deal with it? it is happening about twice a month so not that bad but she wakes dp who works and i know that the neighbours can hear her too so leaving it to carry on isnt really an option either.

[bump] need someone to help me persuede dp that this is not a matter for the doctors and that dd1 doesnt whatever he thinks she has wrong with her! somthing regarding counselling! he is a hyperchondriac but goes on and on untill he gets me paranoid!

what would you do to deal with it?

how old is she? could you call in the HV for help? She might be able to give you ideas to deal with her behaviour while it may also keep your DP happy (what with HV being a professional).

You say your DP is a hypochondriac - is yourLO picking it up from him, do you think?

It's a tricky one. I would err on the side of caution rather than having the shame of one day dismissing a genuine problem (my own mother did this several times!), but it sounds like it has gone beyond that now.
Do you think it's the attention she likes? It sounds as if she might enjoy the fuss and perhaps the sensation of having lotion etc. If you think this is the case, what about rubbing a bit of body lotion in after bathtime and seeing if that keeps her happy?

yes i think its the attention. she is a light sleeper and any tiny noise wakes her!

i put johnsons nighttime lavender lotion on after each bath to try and help her sleep better.

imo she wakes cant get back to sleep and feels bored, tired and grumpy so she cries and then has to think of a reason to cry!!!

she is 4. i dont think she is picking up dps behavior as she knows thati just dismiss him. a fave saying is that it would be funny if he felt normal, a reaction to his constant "im not well i feel funny"

It's the light sleeping that's causing the problem, then.
I've got no good advice (sorry!) but I can sympathise with your DD as I'm a rubbish sleeper myself and sometimes have to resort to earplugs. I use yellow industrial ones and they do help.
Not sure whether earplugs in a girl that little are advisable, but it might be worth asking a HV or similar.

might it be pins and needles or cramp? possible if she is so specific about the area, and that bloody hurts.... also massaging the leg helps this, so could explain the lotion cure? maybe ask her to describe the pain, good luck

yes i might do that! it also seems to be somehow linked to me!

the creams are kept in her room so if she geniunely believed that her feet were hurting surely she would put the cream on herself. she has aftersun with her tonight just incase! and she wont let dp put the cream on. only me.

i think my new way of dealing with, ignoring it and insisting that she goes back to sleep without indulging her, is the best way to go atm. but dp says this is not practical as she is waking him and dd2 and more than likely the neighbours. her screaming is not constant btw as i am in her room talking to her just not indulging her feet issues! and it does only happen a couple of times a month!

If she enjoys the touch and attention why not put a programme in place whereby if she sleeps or stays in her bed all night then you will make time to give her a nice foot massage during maybe 1:1 time with her during the day, does she push for attention during the day, does she feel it easier to get your attention at night whilst the other is asleep, is there any jelousy? If you are going to continue to go down the road of creams when she screams as its only couple times a month then slowly shorten the length of times you take to apply and spend some time during waking hours when more acceptable to the family and slowly replace with or teach her to do it , if she point blank refusing to do it then it cant be pain cause she would eventually give in and do it self as knows is would take the pain away, if she adamant she wants you to do it it sounds to me she fighting for your attention. if u want any further advice on programmes etc www.littleissues.co.uk

she is very jelous of dd2 but also very loving to her. she doesnt seem to be concerned about her getting attention from me but doesnt like her getting attention from others as she wants her all to herself!

i had never thought about trying it through the day! i might specifically massage her feet before bed. and reward her for staying in bed with an extra story before bed? longer bath time? she loves both of these things,

we do spend a lot of time together, though having said that i spent most of yesterday cleaning and she was at my nans later in the day, but then we did bake a cake together while dd2 was having her nap so she still had time alone with me

When I was little I would get "cramps" in my legs every night. My mum read up on it, spoke to our GP and apparently it was due to a vitamin B deficiency. She started giving me multivitamins, and a special B vitamin multi complex. It really helped. A week went by, and no more pains!

i might try multi vits too then just incase but am fairly sure that its not that, she would let anyone comfort her. she does normally get on with dp and if she is really hurt she will let him comfort her

Couple of things here:

it is quite likely that the pains in her feet are genuine- growing pains are not uncommon

as the parent of a child with (genuine) chronic pain, I have spent some time with the people who treat imaginary pains and have noticed that the one thing they do not do is to get locked into long arguments about whether the child is making it up or being naughty- these only make the sufferer think more about the pain

a better approach is to recognise the pain (even imaginary pain hurts!) but not to make a big fuss- 'oh dear, those silly feet again, here let's kiss it better, there you go'

if a 4yo needs reassurance in the middle of the night I'd give it to her (but then I'm a big softie); I'd just try to make it as calm and low key as possible

I would not expect a 4yo to have to treat an injury (even imaginary!) herself, particularly not in the middle of the night- a frightened child will need her Mum
(my 11yo still wakes me up when she's in pain- and it's always me she wants!)

some children have an oversensitive nerve system- I don't mean nerves as in what makes you nervous, but the actual physical nerves; so they can feel things as pain that shouldn't hurt; a reassuring calm approach is best

if some of the pain is real, that could be overstimulating her nerve system and making her more sensitive to all pain

pre-diagnosis I spent hour after weary hour arguing with my daughter about how she couldn't possibly be in pain- and guess what? she has never been in so much pain since. I was just winding her up and making her feel mis-understood. Once the arguing stopped she coped much better. I am sure that works for imaginary pains to.

you could teach her some coping techniques, basic relaxation, CBT- there's lots of stuff online

Should add: there is no way a doctor can diagnose growing pains/exclude a diagnosis of growing pains by just looking at the feet. It doesn't show on the outside. So telling her that you know there is nothing wrong with her feet could be untrue- as well as being counter-productive.

and if you'll excuse me for introducing a gloomy and irrelevant subject, my dd's consultant told her there was nothing whatsoever wrong with hers- she is now wheelchair bound and we are applying for DLA. Obviously not something that is likely to happen to you (so don't start panicking!!!), but it's a bit of a cautionary tale. I drove my dd very close to a breakdown by nagging too much about her hypochondria. We would have been a lot better off if I hadn't felt I had to know what was imaginary and what was real.

Does she walk properly? My DD has hypermobility of her ankles, she has special boots to support them. If she didn't wear them she would go over on her ankles slightly when she walked and I'm sure get sore ankles and feet..maybe your DD should have her gait assessed incase she needs orthotic insoles or something?

I also think the pains could be real and I can understand you thinking they are not as the lotion seems to work but this could be phsycological. Whenever someone falls in dd's school and grazes themselves the teacher always gives them a wet tissue to make it better so whenever dd falls at home she wants a wet tissue if course this doesn't make it better but she thinks it does iyswim. She has made the association between the pains and the cream. It may be worth a trip to the doctor to see if there is an underlying problem and if there isn't the Dr telling her so may improve things anyway.

*psychological

I was also thinking about something simple like pins and needles. My two dc's have both suffered with this in the night and are absolutely beside themselves with the pain until their feet or hands are massaged.

They are more hysterical having been woken up with the pain and this in itself means they take longer than they might do during the day to calm down.

well she was fine last night no achey feet and no sunburn either! she walks fine and her feet never hurt during the day or ache. no matter how far we walk or run. she i am fairly sure that it is imaginary! i have asked her describe it and she says its aching bones, so i dont think thats pins and needles as when i had that and she saw me shaking my arm and asked what was wrong she said "oh is that what you do stop the sleepy tickles?" (must be something from nursery i have never heard her say anything about sleepy tickles)

do you think i should just keep going with the cream then? its just i was thinking that is only going to make things worse, she will carry on with her feet, rather than give up wont she?

It is typical of growing pains that they come on at night and the person seems perfectly fine during the day. I don't think it is quite known what causes them. But they don't necessarily occur every night. So as far as that is concerned, it may well be growing pains.

If the cream works, why not continue? But don't make a big fuss. If you worry about her being hypocondriac, you are getting her to focus more on illness/pain than if you just calmly accept that her feet sometimes hurt. The calmer you seem, the more likely she is to forget about it. But if she does have growing pains, or any other joint problem, then telling her off won't make them go away.

Besides, asking for reassurance about pain may mean she needs reassurance about something else that she can't verbalise. And if she needs reassurance, then she needs reassurance iyswim. As long as you don't act frightened or worried about her pains, a kindly word isn't going to hurt her.

My DD has leg pains at night but again only a couple of times a month. She's 6 and seems to be getting it less now. She also wakes up screaming - like you say it's the shock of being woken up in pain as much as the pain itself. But she always seems genuinely in pain and we always believe her, as DH had infantile rheumatism as did his dad when young so seems to be something hereditary.

It is 'achey bones' and can be worse if they get cold or damp. We give her Calpol and a hot water bottle and lots of rubs.

Your DD might not have this at all, but I just wanted to let you know that there are conditions that come on at night but not every night and not in the day, as well as cramp, pins and needles and growing pains.

ill probably just carry on with the cream then! i give calpol sometimes but only when she is really hard to settle back down.

but i think that ill reward her good nights too and see if that helps it stop happening. its the fact that it has suddenly changed to imaginary sunburn that has me thinking she is definately just making it up.

if it doesnt stop or get any better ill see the doctor again.

Try to relax and not overanalyse it. Two nights of broken nights a month doesn't sound such a major deal (and yes, my dh has to go to work too; he just accepts that you get tired as a parent).

Hopefully, it will get less and less if she learns that there is nothing to worry about (which is not the same as saying she can't be in pain).

But remember that small children can find it very difficult to describe a pain, so just a change in her description may not mean that she is not telling the truth. A tummy ache can mean all sorts of things IME- basically any area of the trunk of the body. And overstimulation of nerve ends can result in oversensitivity of the skin- which may well feel like sunburn. My dd has joint pains, but when they have been going on for a while or are particularly bad, her skin gets sensitive to touch. No physical reason except I suppose her nerves are just going haywire.

I would carry on with the cream and just speak lightly and reassuringly with her.

hi again

Carry on with the creams but over time shorten a fraction of the time off so you are getting the result of calm and shortening the time every time, less verball attention, if she is doing it to get your attention then talking and encouraging conversation will increase the behaviour (If it is a behaviour) I am not saying ignore her, she only little but if you feed the behaviour with the motivation then the behaviour will increase. Praise the good behaviour ignore the bad behaviour and minimise the verbal attention where you can, obviously she needs comforted, am not suggesting for one minute you dont see to her emotional nees but this way you will see if the behaviour reduces or not, whilst you are still trying to ascertain the origons of the pain

does the calpol work on the occasions that you have given it? my DS sometimes wakes up screaming (he is 2.5yrs) and says "leg hurts, leg hurts". I spent a long time massaging his leg the first couple of times, which did definitely help, but then when resorted to calpol he seemed SO relieved and was back asleep within 20 mins....so could be growing pains or cramp I guess. maybe integrate the cream into bedtime or daytime routine if she enjoys it; hey why not? we girls all like a bit of pampering-she will probably grow up to love spa weekends and facials! on the whole though, maybe just give calpol and see if it has any reasonably instant impact...then you might be able to decide if it's real pain

Just out of interest, I read about a new pill being developed to 'treat' children's imaginary illnesses called 'obecalp' (placebo spelt backwards). It's just a sugar pill - not sure if true or not.