Teen Eating Disorders support thread 3

[Girliefriendlikespuppies]

Thought I better get a new thread going!

Please come and join us if your teen is struggling with an Eating Disorder. We are a kind, supportive bunch of parents looking to support each other through the dark days of caring for a teen with an ED.

@Valleyofthedollymix it might be the snacks, ours work out at 250-300 calories each snack that's what made the difference for us. A trek bar is about 235 calories plus 40 from a glass of semi skimmed milk.

Also on the toast its a heaped tablespoon of peanut butter, sometimes 2 tbsp's

My dd only gained weight when I massively upped the double cream and butter, she refuses snacks so her daily intake looks a bit like this;

Porridge large portion with 150mls of double cream. Small glass of smoothie.

Two large tuna and Mayo rolls, mini cheddars, small yogurt and glass of juice.

Cereal bar (the only snack she has and she only eats around two thirds of it 🙄)

Dinner large portion of whatever I've cooked, where possible extra butter/oil is added as standard. Tonight was toad in the hole with veggie sausages, carrots, broccoli and roast spuds.

Pudding is a large bowl of either cake and cream, ice cream, rice pudding or sometimes a homemade milkshake or smoothie. Double cream is added to everything as standard.

She's gained approximately 1kg a month on this so it's been slow and would have been quicker if she'd eat more snacks.

I'm sorry to the two new posters who have had to find us inspector and resistance but you're in the right place!

Resistance your dd sounds very much in the grips of it 😕 I would start gearing yourself up for refeeding 3 meals and 3 snacks a day, all high fat and high calorie. You will need to keep her off school and also if possible stop work for a while to get started. You absolutely need your gp to refer your dd to the ED service.

Inspector it's very common for parents to end up enabling the ED, I know I did in the early days. Are you sure she's purging? It sounds like you may need to take control of the food choices for now.

Thank you all so much for your messages and advice. It’s so hard knowing what to do for the best. I guess I got lulled into a bit of a false sense of security by the GP (she didn’t seem to be that concerned so I told myself it can’t be that bad!) but I’ve always known deep down that something’s wrong.

Valleyofthedollymix -yes, it started in primary school. Two of her friends were worried about the yr 6 height / weight check, so they all started ‘healthy eating’. DD is the only one that actually stuck with it, and she was very slim to start with. Her diet is definitely orthorexic. I’m glad your DD is putting on weight now - I’d be ecstatic with one kg every 10 days. I’ve been monitoring since Christmas and DDs not really put on anything.

SoTiredNeedHoliday - (and everyone else) thanks for the example meal plan. I think that DD would eat most of that, except the biscuits. She doesn’t avoid all dairy - I give her a lot of full fat Greek yoghurt (I buy the most calorific one I can find). She’s gone off milk but will drink oat milk (same calories as semi-skimmed). I need to get her back on whole milk. She likes the Trek bars too.

Lougle - thanks for the information - it’s terrifying. DD’s birthday is end of July - not sure if that’ll make any difference though.

She is definitely eating more than 800cals a day at the moment. Today I made her overnight oats for breakfast with nuts, seeds, Greek yoghurt and apple (half). It was a big portion. I’d say 500cals+. She had a bag of seeds for a snack at school and a Graze box when she got back (only 150cals though). She’ll have lentil bolognese for dinner (she’s pescatarian) with fruit and yoghurt and I’ll get her to have a Trek bar before bed. The problem is school meals (they have to have them). She says she doesn’t like any of the main options so has soup and a roll, every day. That seems like a reasonable amount of food, but clearly it’s not enough for her (and to be fair it’s quite a bit more than she’s been eating recently). It’s so difficult to make up the calories with the foods she’ll eat though.

DD would be devastated not to be able to go to school - she loves it. Maybe that’ll persuade her to make an extra effort with the food.

Mogtheanxiouscat - it does seem like we are in a very similar situation. Good luck with the GP appointment. Hope it’s a better experience than ours. Looks like I need to make another appointment too.

Thanks again everyone.

@InspectorHastings I think that's a really tough one. When DD1 (15) was first diagnosed she was really underweight (68% weight for height). So to a large extent, if she's willing to eat it, we've given it. That means many, many, chocolate based foods, anything she would eat. Now that she's almost 90% WFH, we've started to challenge the variety of food she will eat and insist on eating our choice of dinner, etc.

I think ordering 2 meals isn't on if she hasn't had lunch and it's not unreasonable to say no.

Hi new peeps and sorry you have had to find us.
@InspectorHastings I am with your gut feel here that your DD is quite unwell.
You post above has a few red flags for me. ‘She has gone off cows milk’.... switching to plant milks is an anorexic behaviour and wouldn’t be recommenced. Similarly becoming veggie or pescatarian (unless she always has been).
At her age (pre puberty I am guessing) the level of calories required is very high. My DD is 13 and started cutting back last summer/ autumn. She never ate less than 1500 cals but lost a lot of weight as she does a lot of activity,
At our daughters age there shouldn’t be any weight loss and between 12 and 14 they should be gaining about 5kg a year.
In order to get my Dd from 77% (where she was at her worst) to weight restored she had to eat more than 3000 cals a day.
You really need to get her back on full fat milk and if possible meat.
I would be hiding double cream in those overnight oats (double cream is very calorific and has loads of great fats and brain healing stuff in) and oil in the bologinaise.
I would ask school for a dinner menu in advance. Make her choose a proper main and then ensure school save her her portion. If they insist she has it they need to work with you. My DD has lunch at home now but is trialling school dinner after half term.
Use school as leverage and make a deal with her. She eats everything you put in front of her or she doesn’t go.
And yes you need to see a different GP or self refer to CAMHS

Sorry that sounded really bossy! I just get very cross when kids and parents are let down by rubbish GP advice. All this healthy eating nonsense for kids is so damaging for many children.
My KW also runs a lot of ED training and she said at our last meeting that they have finally got agreement from the relevant powers that be for compulsory ED training for all emergency medicine registrars before qualification....4 hours mandatory training. better than nothing I suppose... they need to get GPs clued up too...

I’m really struggling with it all today. DD had a spectacular meltdown last night because I suggested that she should stay out of the kitchen when I’m cooking the evening meal (she’s constantly trying to control what or how much ingredients I use and then the portion I serve). She went nuts and said why am I introducing new rules when she hasn’t done anything wrong and that I’m just trying to make everything harder for her. She sobbed her way through her dinner then told me she fucking hates me when she’d finished and went up to her bedroom where she continued to wail inconsolably. When I went up to try and comfort her she wouldn’t let me go anywhere near her and just kept repeating that I’m trying to make everything harder. It’s so hard when you just want to do everything in your power to make them feel better yet you are the reason for their distress. She wouldn’t accept any comfort or love and affection from me and kept screaming at me to go away. What do you do in that situation? Do you stick it out even though every fibre of them is pushing you away or do you just leave?

Then this morning she still refused to talk to me and said that she wanted DH to sit with her for breakfast. Completely silent car journey to school. She’s got to FaceTime me for her snack at break time and it will be unbearable if she’s still not talking to me.

@Rollergirl11 That sounds really tough. Hope the break time went ok.

@Rollergirl11 that sounds like a tough evening.
I guess I just try to remind myself that you are making things better even if she doesn’t greet with you. What’s making her unhappy is the ED and you standing up to it. You are right to get her out of the kitchen.
In the long run being out of the kitchen will make it easier for her. The ED just doesn’t want to relinquish that control.
It is exhausting to always be the bad guy. I know.
Yesterday I was given th4 cold shoulder because I keep asking her to clear everything on her plate and in her glass which she is still resisiting. It’s tempting to feel I am over reacting. But then her over reaction to a perfectly reasonable request says it all. I am still not sure I can be bothered to have that fight any more.
In the end last night I just said I was sorry that what I had asked her was making her feel so alarmed and that I could see if was hard for her. Then I said I love you and I am proud of you and said goodnight and left her to it.
She was ok this Morning.
I keep ,holding onto the fact that I have read many messages from recovered anorexics who say that they are now grateful their parents did what they had to do to get them better, and that it was always the anorexia making them get cross and upset.

@Rollergirl11 sometimes we love our children in ways they can't recognise. You're doing a great job.

I weighed DD1 today after 1 week of our new 2300 calorie target (down from 3000). She's put on 0.6kg, so that's good. She's now 50.2kg and 91.08% WFH.

I had to force her to go to school today, though. She's only doing 2 lessons but she's struggling to go in at all.

Having said that, she's eating a wider variety of foods again, without too much fuss. This week so far she's had a smoothie, porridge, cheese toastie, chicken pasta bake, burger with a bun, pizza, salmon potatoes and veg, meatballs with spaghetti, macaroni cheese, and roast chicken with roasted veg. That's hugely improved, because we were down to chocolate croissants and pancakes, pretty much.

So today they discharged dd from the ward. She's put on over 1kg since last Tuesday. Obviously it's a very long way to go but good to be home.

Do any of you use a specific app to add up the calories? I thought it would be useful to have something to track daily intake.

@NCTDN that's great news! It can be a bit daunting coming home and realising that you have to make sure they get better, but we're here too I use My Fitness Pal to track calories. It's free, accurate, and has barcode scanning.

Thank you @Lougle
The wfh they've given is slightly different to what you sent so I thought dd would be able to walk around the house now but apparently not.

It is hard. DD1 was 80% before she came off bed/wheelchair rest. But she did need that time and tbh, even now she spends most of her time at home in bed because she's just so tired. I'm hoping her vitamin D tablets give her a little more energy.

Dd is the total opposite. She has too much energy and it's driving her mad having to sit still.

Roller I'm sorry you are having such a hard time, I remember the early days of refeeding well and it was hell 😕 I think hold onto the fact that if you're seeing distress that's a good thing as it's means the ED is under pressure. To slay the beast you have to see it.

I know it feels completely wrong to cause the distress but you have to try and separate your dd from the ED and also accept that she is going to be angry and hate you for a while.

Definitely keep her out of the kitchen, once the initial anxiety has calmed down she will actually be less stressed watching you cook and prepare the food.

Lots I still have battles getting dd to finish anything 🙄 she always has to leave a small token amount and I'm also at the point of turning a blind eye as I'm so knackered with arguing with her about it!!

Had an appointment with the psychiatrist Ystd who didn't really have anything useful to say, she wasn't concerned about the OCD at all. She did agree that dd will need to go over 100% wfh so was good to have that confirmed.

That sounds really difficult @Rollergirl11 you are doing such a great job though.

I do wish I could understand how DS thinks. He text me this evening (from his bedroom) to tell me that he is worried that next week he is not going to eat any food. I’m not sure what he means.

We have token bits of food left.ive given up the fight or next meals more confrontational
Lougle that's brilliant news on the variety front,and on gaining on lower cals
One my other DC referred for assessment in sept.ifeel such a failure.she has crippling anxiety,hates her body and has gained over 2 stone in a year.ahe shares a room lil zoobit worried how this go pan out.ive no other way configure bedrooms.they were tictok dancing over an hour last night apparently.if that causes weight drop for lil zoo I will not be happy

Hi, I’m back. Have my daughters scan result from missing periods (since March 2020) and there’s nothing amiss so I’m going to use that to get her back to the doctors. I’m really struggling at the moment. She seems to hate me so very much. No one else thinks she has a problem, as she has muscle from gym you could think she wasn’t too bad. But she eats no carbs at all. Vegan plus tuna/fish (protein is everything). I saw her in a short dress for her birthday meal yesterday and well, to me it’s obvious, she has no fat at all. It’s so exhausting. She almost punched me one night this week and I sent her to her dads. He thinks she’s ok. It had pushed me over the edge. I’m not even force feeding her yet!! At the birthday meal she said she would relax her rules and eat carbs etc. It was burger and chips. Then cake. Then I watched as she went off to the toilet... so I’m pretty sure she’s vomiting now aswell. It’s like it’s only me and her who know it’s happening!! Everyone else in the family has dismissed my fears! She basically just laughed off everything she said when she was drunk- the suicidal feelings, the acknowledgment of ED... just being dramatic she said. She knows I don’t believe that.

Oh @Zzzexhaustedzzz that's horrible. Dd too had so little fat it was hard to tell when she was losing weight and I have no idea what she weighed before any of this as I had no cause for concern to need to know. We had people telling us she was fine but just push with your instincts.
I also used the no periods as the way in. The gynaecologist told us it was due to being underweight so that's how we got a dietitian referral. I just should've pushed for it more quickly.

Really sorry @Zzzexhaustedzzz that you're feeling gaslit. And sorry @Stilllivinginazoo that you're fire fighting on many fronts.

@ResistanceBanned sadly my daughter is not the one putting on 1kg every 10 days. I'd be ecstatic with that. We're more like 100g every 10 days, sigh. She started off well but we've plateaued. She eats really quite a lot but it just seems to maintain rather than add. I just need to find a few hundred calories more each day.

Oh resistance a few hundred more each day sound such a lot! How do you manage it?

Lougle - congrats on maintaining that increase & on widening food intake

Still - that sounds very difficult with your two DD…

So sorry Exhausted that you’re not getting any support from elsewhere - it can be an incredibly isolating illness in many senses

Valley - can we help at all in finding ways to add a few more calories?

We tried a family trip away this week - was intended to be a two night visit but the anorexia was kicking in hard and DD was very upset/anxious on night one and very distressed by afternoon of day two so we came home. Very disappointed as we were all so excited about the potential of a trip away but I guess a lesson learned that at this stage in recovery it is all still quite fragile and we need to pace ourselves a bit more…

Oops yes I meant @Valleyofthedollymix not @ResistanceBanned