Really worried and don't know what to do. DS (10) has always had some sensory 'issues' - he's very sensitive to certain things, particularly taste and smell - he can be strongly attracted to or repulsed by certain things. As a small baby, he would regularly regurgitate entire bottles of milk near the end of a feed, and up until about the age of five, he would sometimes (up to once a week) throw up an entire meal near the end. This never really distressed him very much, and seemed to be triggered by slightly gagging on food or tasting something he didn't like. Anyway, he grew out of it, and in the last few years he's become a really good eater - he's very interested in food, loves to cook and read recipe books, happy to try new and quite exotic things. The sensory thing hadn't entirely gone away - there were still a small handful of things that he absolutely could not abide and flatly refused to eat - but generally all was good.
Then, a few months ago he had a couple of incidents when he was sick after a meal in a restaurant - a couple of times when he seemed to have just eaten too much and once when he'd reacted against something he really didn't like. He then became paranoid about eating out in restaurants - I think the warm, stuffy atmosphere didn't help - and when we'd eat out he'd have to go outside during the meal for fresh air because he felt unwell.
More recently, this has started to happen at home - halfway through a meal he'll ask to get down from the table because he suddenly comes over nauseous. He'll often take himself off to the loo - I'm terrified he's making himself sick, but I don't actually think he is - I think it's more that he needs to take himself away because he feels queasy. Even more worryingly, he's now saying that he thinks the reason that he feels like this is because he's 'eating too much' - and he's becoming paranoid about over-eating. In fact, he's skinny as a rake (always has been) and has gone from eating loads to eating much too little (I think). For hours after he's had one of these 'episodes' he'll say that he feels unwell, or that his throat feels 'funny' - but if I ask him to tell me more he can never give me any specific symptoms - leading me to think it's psychosomatic.
I really don't think this has anything to do with body image; it seems more to do with a self-perpetuating cycle of worrying about feeling ill through over-eating and therefore making himself feel sick as soon as thinks he might have over-eaten. He's a worrier and an over-thinker generally.
For the first time since I became a parent, I'm at a total loss of what to do, and I'm really, really scared that this is going to turn into a major problem for him. We've been trying to minimise the issue and just stay relaxed about the whole thing - but it's not working. Part of me thinks I should take him to the doctor - but another part of me thinks that that's just going to make it into a bigger deal and make the problem worse. If anyone has any help or advice, I'd be incredibly grateful. Thanks for reading.