Teen Eating Disorders Thread 4

[SoTiredNeedHoliday]

Starting a new thread, no 3 is full

1000 for 1kg sorry

@Lottsbiffandsmudge thank you that is really helpful.

@SnitchyBitch

Thanks for all your kind words. Dr said she will definitely need to go back for bloods soon. She’s not doing very much at all during the day, at the moment the threat of losing the sport she loves is the only thing keeping her eating and motivating her to get better. Her coach has experience of helping a couple of other girls through the same and he is very aware of what’s going on and what she needs to do and has spelt it out to her very bluntly. She’s been trying to slowly increase her calories and having oats and eggs but today is the first day we’re aiming for a target so hopefully it will go well. My heart goes out to you hearing all your stories and shocks me how many of us are in this position. Also, sorry but what does WFH mean?

Hi sorry you have had to find us my DD is 13 too and sporty. My story is up this thread somewhere! Wfh stands for weight for height which is used for children as opposed to BMI. You take their height and work out what a child who was 50th percentile for BMI would weigh. That weight is the 100% wfh. Often CAMHS aim for 95% but really it depends on what you child was like pre ED. They may have been a 95 percentile child if so 100% is too low. My DD was always a 9th percentile for weight but is now 100% wfh ie 50th percent tile and is finally making progress with recovery. My suggestion is over shooting until their mental state improves and then finding their 'range' on maintenance. Of course at 13 they need to gain c 5kg a year anyway.... Also if they grow during recovery the target weight will go up. Since hitting 100% my DD has grown and started puberty again which had totally stopped in its tracks. Still no periods tho.

Hi snitchy sorry you've had to find us. How long has your dd been restricting to 500cals a day for? I don't mean to frighten you but you may need to consider a&e at that level of restriction. It's possible her organs are massively struggling 😕

You need to take full control of all food related decisions and she needs 3 meals and 3 snacks a day, everything should be full fat and high calorie. I know you probably think well that's impossible but honestly the food is your child's medicine and the only chance they have of recovery. If you work you'll need to take time off as the feeding process is a full time job, expect a massive kick back from your dd. Most of us on here have seen our children behave in some pretty shocking ways when presented with some food and told to eat it.

You have to stay calm and compassionate and very very persistent, have a look at some Eva Musby videos on YouTube. You can use whatever leverage you have and life stops until they eat.

Mog I was really shocked at how quickly dd accepted I was in charge of her food in the early days. After the initial kick off calmed down she ate the 3 plus 3 really well. It all went tits up for us after a weight gain before Christmas and from then she's refused two of the snacks. She's blind weighed since then, I wish in hindsight she'd been blind weighed from the start. I suspect if she had been she'd be in a much better place/cured completely by now...

Dd had a small loss at ystds weight check, only 300grams but I'm still a bit gutted. Feels like she will be stuck at 99% wfh forever 😫 it's so hard to get her to eat even a mouthful more. She needs around an extra 500cals a day I think (currently on around 3000cals) but God knows how I can squeeze any more in!!

Gutted DD had a slight loss today. 45kg down to 44kg. I felt totally gutted, had a bit of a meltdown but she’s eaten really well at tea time. We’ve got the fortisip now and she’ll be having at least two a day.

We only started the meal plan on Monday so I’m going to stay hopeful for next week.

I will certainly look up Eva Musby.
CAMHS rang today for more information and had a long chat with us both, she said to aim for 1500cals per day.
Sport is going to stop for now until she’s proven she can eat more and I’m ringing Dr again tomorrow to book her in for bloods, blood pressure, weekly weigh in etc.

@Girliefriendlikespuppies Luckily I only work time so am home all this month to keep an eye on her, Will have a conversation with school about her being supervised at lunchtimes if I need to when she goes back so I know she’s not gone all day without eating.

Thank you @Lottsbiffandsmudge for explanation.

*work term time.

I am on' holiday' atm. I say that in the weakest sense of the word. We are camping just in the uk but omg it's so stressful! Every meal, every snack- just relentless. I worry from one meal to the next about whether she is eating enough and doing too much - which I'm sure she is even when wandering slowly around a village. Each night we try and plan meals the next day but then the weather has thwarted some of those plans. It's certainly not a switch off for me.

Thanks girlie

This thread is so helpful.

Mog our Camhs therapist explained it as actually being a relief to the child that they can't control the food anymore. I think deep down they know something is really wrong so when we take over it's a huge relief plus they won't be starving hungry 99% of the time!! Unfortunately the ED often finds other ways to torture them (exercise compulsion, self harm, binging, ocd etc)

HI everyone, thank you for your words of support. it means a lot and I am trying to just get through this.

DD is really resisting eating at the moment. She's sitting at the kitchen table with DH saying she feels sick, guilty and doesn't want to eat. She has two friends over today and I've said she has to eat in order to have them over. It seems like the only way I can get her to eat at the moment is basically to threaten her. We went out into London for the day yesterday and I cancelled the event last time as she wouldn't eat, so she knows I'll do it even if I do lose money on it.

Unfortunately it went a bit wrong. She brought a friend who I strongly believe has an undiagnosed ED. So DD had a snack and a drink, we did the event, then we went to lunch, where friend ate the same as DD but had peppermint tea instead of a sweet drink. Then DD had a pathetic amount of snack on the way home, friend of course had nothing (friend wearing baggy clothes and looking quite ill). Dinner at home was a nightmare as DD said it was a competition and she had lost as she'd eaten more than friend.

Of the two friends coming today, one is in recovery and is very supportive and the other the mum suspects to be bulimic - last time she was here she hid her snack in her sleeves. WTAF? HOW many kids? Another friend also has disordered eating. Ideally I'd like to keep her away from those friends but frankly there aren't many left... Certainly I've decided they won't be here at mealtimes.

Any words of advice when they just refuse? I don't like the person I've become as I'm threatening my child. I really want her to be out with friends but it seems its the only leverage I have at the moment.

I'm also feeling constantly nauseous with anxiety and this whole thing is ruining my relationship with food as I am eating far more than I want to as I need to set an example (I am normal weight relatively I suppose but have struggled all my life with my weight). I feel constantly sick so I can really relate to how she's feeling.

Sorry for the ramble.

@DarkBlueEyes ramble away, can’t believe how many of them are struggling with similar issues.

I’ve threatened my daughter with A&E today. She was refusing the juice that was on the meal plan. I told her if she didn’t follow the meal plan she’d have to go into hospital and be fed by a tube.
I’ve taken her phone away and she can only have it when she’s eaten according to the plan.
I feel like I’m making her worse.😔
She’s already too weak to go to her job on Saturday which she loves.

I feel so hopeless … it’s affecting the whole family.

Hi all me again. I forgot to ask earlier, does anyone else have a problem with food being smeared? DD plays with the food with her fingers and smears stuff she doesn't want to eat around the plate, on her clothes, on the cushions on herself etc and it's bloody carnage. Our friends commented on it to her on holiday it's so obvious. We ask her to stop it, and sometimes I scoop it up with a spoon and make her eat it, but is this typical behaviour? (I nearly wrote normal then and had to stop myself). What can we do about it?

@bettybarkalot123 I could have written what you said word for word. I'm so sorry for you and for me and for all of us on here. I just want it to stop.

Me too! My DD has always had such a healthy relationship with food. Even as a baby there was nothing she wouldn’t eat.
I’m also worried about the influence her friends are having on her.

@DarkBlueEyes I hear you with the anxiety. When I realised this was happening to DD my panic attacks ramped up massively to the point of ending up in a & e. I'm on sertraline now and that's helped a lot.

@DarkBlueEyes it is a typical ED behaviour to cut food up into ever smaller sizes, push it around the plate and try to disguise how much is left. What I've found is that although ED are deeply personal it does seem to induce the same behaviours so to that end you'll find someone on here who has had that exact same experience.

In terms of refusal - we had an expectation (given to us by CAMHS) that food should be eaten in x minutes. When DD was doing okay we'd extend the x a bit. But otherwise after x minutes had elapsed it was on to fortisip for the mop up calories. If fortisip was refused twice we'd refer back into CAMHS and given where we were then hospitalisation was likely.

Am not going to lie meals are a hellscape. We all cried, DD threw things, hurt herself etc. The time limit felt mega challenging but actually it is important - the more time & space you can create between meals the less opportunity there is for the ED voice to take over.

We were lucky that we had some meal support so it eventually went (when it went well)- present food, distraction whilst eating, finish more or less on time then immediate distraction including leaving the house so we were away from the 'home of food'.

Distraction whilst eating sounds simplistic - it wasn't. We had repetitive conversations day after day (another ED behaviour - so don't be alarmed)

to you all - it is overwhelming & this isn't really a positive but I'll say it anyway, in a few short weeks you'll be the expert for your DC's ED and you'll be passing on your knowledge to the new joiners to the thread

Dark it's really typical and normal behaviour for someone with an ED, my dd has hidden food, smeared bits of food into clothes, hidden food in tissues and tea towels. Now she leaves a token amount of food on her plate which in theory isn't allowed however I increased portion size to compensate for around the 5-10% wastage iyswim. Lunch is the meal my dd struggles with the most for some reason and she often shreds bits of bread and leaves a mess on her plate 😕

In theory you should insist the plate is cleared and I probably should have stricter in the beginning.

Having a tough day here. We’ve started with the fortisip. DD is supposed to have one with a morning snack however she is absolutely terrified of them. They seem to send her into a spiral of depression after having one.

I feel completely despondent and exhausted. I feel like I can hardly bring myself to cook or eat. I hate seeing her like this and I feel that I’m making her worse.

Oh @Bettybarkalot123 that sounds tough. Is Dd able to explain why she's so terrified of them? My DD went through a phase of not wanting them (over and above not wanting anything) because the ED convinced her that having calories in liquid form was worse than in food form - something to do with being easier to drink meaning there was less effort - is that akin to what your DD is feeling do you think?

@Bettybarkalot123 DD1 hated the fortisips. It's so hard.

We were in A&E last night because DD1 went to a friend's house and the Mum said she had 4 partial seizures. We were there 5½ hours. DD1 had eaten at about 3pm (Burger King) then I had collected her from the friend's house and driven her to A&E. After the 5½ hours, a paediatrician saw us and asked for a blood sugar: 3.3! But little wonder given that DD1 hadn't even been offered a cup of water during her wait. So at 23.00 she was eating biscuits and drinking orange juice so they could retest her blood sugar and discharge her.

@Lougle I’m so sorry to hear about your daughter.

I hope she’s ok now.
I think it’s the thought of so many calories in one go. We’ve explained that this is the medicine that will get her feeling better.
It’s just highs and lows all the time.

Betty it is an awful feeling but when you think it's just food and drink that is causing such huge distress it seems so ridiculous!! Would another milky drink or a milkshake/smoothie be easier for your dd to drink?

Oh no Lougle hope your dd is feeling better now?

I've crawled to the end of this week but now have two weeks annual leave. Will be so nice not to have to worry about work for a bit!!

She’s only been on the meal plan for a week but i feel I’m making her worse not better. She’s so so sad and scared.