Teen Eating Disorders Thread 4

[SoTiredNeedHoliday]

Starting a new thread, no 3 is full

Thanks Valley, Myrtle and Sotired for your feedback on Fluoxetine. I’m hoping and praying that it allows DD to move forward with her recovery. It’s more her crippling anxiety and depression that is holding her back now rather than the eating.

Our wend was okay, I enjoyed my night out and we had a nice day on the Sunday at a dog show.

Dd ate okay ish and everything felt okay.

Fast forward to today and she was so awful to me at lunchtime I felt like calling social services and telling them to take her (only half joking 🙃)
I honestly don't think I have ever spoken to anyone the way she spoke to me, I know it's the ED but it's still not okay.

I took her phone off her for a bit and got an apology later on, I told her it was verbal abuse and next time the phone will be gone for 24 hours at least.

I'm so sick of it.

This was all triggered by me telling her to eat more of her sandwich!!

Hi ladies just wondering if I can ask about Fluoxetine. My dd is coming off Olanzapine as doing nothing. I’d mooted Fluoxetine as dd mentioned Olanzapine helped with mood. But in her session with psych it was dismissed. We weren’t there. Her brother is on it. Doesn’t really help with his anxiety and has taken a while and increase but is now helping with his depression.

Just wondering what leads to diagnosis with it as regards ED, how depressed do they need to be? It has been said dd’s ED may be due to handling of stress negative thoughts.Wondering why Flu not being explored.

Psych appointment was really rushed and she fed back to us in the car park so didn’t touch on a couple of things.😩

@Scr1bblyGum for us it needed to be that DD had some form of depression prior to the restricting starting. The difficult thing is that until she was a bit higher in weight she was unable to tell us anything that made sense about before she was restricting..... so its a bit chicken and egg. Oh and by the way our DD stayed on Olanzapine in conjunction with the Fluoxetine as they treat different aspects etc

Just back from weight check, dd has somehow gained and is now 58.7kgs!! Lougle would you mind working out her wfh for me again please, she's 170cm now.

Im wondering if all this recent kicking off is the extinction burst they talk about on the fb page...

That’s good news Girlfriend. How much does that mean she’s put on?

DD has started on Fluoxetine today. She has 10mg for first week and then it goes up to 20mg. Fingers crossed it helps her!

Really hope it helps her @Rollergirl11.

Speaking of which has any ever heard of an antihistamine called Periactin as a weight gain aid? It seems to have incredible testimonials (and some eye popping before and after pictures).

Hi all quick check in from me. We are still not in a great place, but DD has gone back to school and her mood is definitely better. But she is massively tormented by feelings of guilt and doesn't want to eat, full stop. Still having tantrums and smearing/messy with her food.

School nurse rang me yesterday and I discovered she'd tipped out most of her juice (there was half a bottle and she only arrived with an inch or so left) and when confronted she bare faced denied it and got extremely pissed off that we'd accused her of something she didn't do. When I asked what happened to the juice then, she couldn't answer.

We have been in touch with the Schoen clinic and are booked in for an assessment (no date yet, they will be in touch). I feel she desperately needs medication - any experiences of sertraline vs risperadone? I don't know how we;'ll get the money together to do the three day a week programme but I hope the assessment will at least get us some medication.

My other daughter's mental health issues are also getting worse and I guess it's no surprise that I am on sertraline myself. You are all amazing to be able to cope with this as honestly I've never struck anything like it.

Hope you are all doing ok.

@DarkBlueEyes. Could I ask what your DD’s current wfh is? Hope it’s not too personal but I’m desperate for DD to go back to school and she is even more so. She’s so down. I feel as though the ED nurse has set this magical wfh % without really looking at DDs whole picture. It’s very frustrating.
Sorry to hear things are difficult.. things very tricky here too. Incredibly frustrating too.

I’m finding it almost impossible to get over 2500 calories into DD each day. She is eating well but I just can’t seem to up the meal plan.

I just feel exhausted and as if I’m failing her every day.

@Bettybarkalot123 it's really tough isn't it, my DD is so rigid about the mealplan that it was almost impossible to increase the calories. In the end what did the trick for us was substituting items which DD didn't realise were high calorie. She liked the 1000 calorie banana muffins from the Feast website (never quite packed enough nuts in to get quite to 1000 calories but was prob around 700) and the Gu choc fondant puds which look really quite tiny but are over 400 cal. I am lucky though that DD is ok with sweet things and is young enough to not understand calories that well (ie believes nuts are low calorie). I also smuggled a lot of olive oil into her meals. I know CAHMS tell you not to hide things but it was the only thing that would work for us! You are doing really well on the 2500 Cals though, I know from experience how incredibly difficult it is to get to that level.

Thank you .. we’re probably just over 2000 a day and she’s not doing any exercise apart from the odd dog walk.
We’re supposed to have added two pieces of toast with butter and jam/Nutella to breakfast but she just won’t eat it. Instead I’ve added a third weetabix and 100 mls extra of orange juice. She also banana and raspberries on her breakfast. To me that’s a substantial breakfast for a 15 year old girl, but ED nurse tells me I’m wrong.

She lost half a kg this week because we’d been on holiday and she was pretty active. She’s just hardly gaining weight. I could cry most days.
Will check out the feast website -thanks!

2500 is so hard! We can't do sweet things and DD is hyper aware of calories, only eats healthy food etc - the volumes she needs are huge. I am eternally grateful to nut butters though - Nutcessicity are the latest investment. Our meal plan is for 2500 and she gets in a real state if she perceives that we're going over it by a single calorie yet constantly manages to sneak under it which apparently isn't an issue.

I always think that if we do min 2000 and little exercise then we've got through another day without at least loss.

Great advice. My DD is also super aware of calories and fat. I’ve noticed she almost has to adjust gradually to new things.. breakfast is the same most days, she isn’t massively triggered unless she notices something new, like a tiny pancake or more juice.
She’ll have a hot choc every night, she chose a fancy le cruset mug which she loves and actually on the bottom it says 400mls which she hasn’t even noticed surprisingly. Every night she’ll have 300mls of hot chocolate in her mug, but we’ve had to increase that to have a snack with it… some of the suggested snacks are two crumpets with butter or a portion of sticky toffee pudding with ice cream!!! One chocolate digestive with it sends her spiralling into depression and she’s shaking as she eats.

Tonight I’m making a falafel curry with full fat coconut milk. I’ve challenged her to include a samosa with it 🤞🏻

I'm going to have to check out the feast website. 1000 cal muffins sound amazing!

My DD has managed not to gain over the last two weeks and I'm dreading the apt with the ed nurse tomorrow. I know I'm not getting enough calories in her, I'm finding it quite over whelming right now.

@Mogtheanxiouschat me too!
Sending a hug your way. I wish there was more I could say to help but I’m totally and utterly at the end of my tether. Surely there’s only so much one person can endure.. then I feel guilty for even thinking that when DD is so poorly. I wish it could be me, not her.

@DarkBlueEyes our DD went to the Schoen and it was helpful for her. Just messaging to say don't expect medication on your initial assessment - it might happen but not in our case.
Have you had no success with NHS being able to prescribe medication? For us it was the NHS that started DD on meds.

@Bettybarkalot123 Full fat coconut milk is constantly present in our evening meals, at least 2 or 3 times a week. It has really helped us!

@Mogtheanxiouschat that's what the NHS is there for, to help you get DD to be able to eat. You just have to be honest and tell them how hard you are trying and all the issues you and DD are having.
Its so awful to go through and the things I've had to explain are like I'm talking about a toddler, not a teenager. I was not being totally direct/open at the start of the process but I learn't that was helping us get the help we needed.

Stay strong, you can only try and get her to eat, you can't eat for her (though I know we all wish we could)

Thanks @SoTiredNeedHoliday I know it's partly my issue with wanting to avoid conflict. I'm just not good at being firm with her. And therefore feel I'm failing her.

Can anyone tell me about postural drop? I've noticed that she is getting a flushed face a lot, seemingly just after standing up. I took her reading sitting down and it was 105 / 77 and BPM of 77. When standing it was 91/72 and BPM 86.

Hi @Mogtheanxiouschat when DD had her observations done, if she had a drop in the measures by 12 or more (I can't remember if it was top/bottom or either) they had to keep doing it, get her to drink water etc until it came good - but it was a definitely a regular occurence/amber flag her weekly obs. Does your DD get very dizzy and fall over at all after standing up?

@SoTiredNeedHoliday The curry was a success, she had a good portion, lots of sauce with coconut milk, loads of spinach and goodness. I’ve also used coconut milk in sweet potato soup which she seems to enjoy too. I’ll look for some more ideas.

Thanks @myrtleWilson she does say she feels dizzy, but doesn't actually fall over

@Mogtheanxiouschat the dizzyness / eyes blacking out a little when standing was bad enough to have our DD admitted to A&E, so keep an eye on it. DD had become so used to being dizzy when she stood up she had forgotten what it was normally like, of course she said nothing to us.....

@Bettybarkalot123 - great the curry went down well - in this thankless game you have to count every success - one bite at a time!

Just to post something positive and maybe give some hope - my DD is approaching her 100 % WFH and the difference is unbelievable. We still have a way to go with therapy but my wonderful DD has definitely returned. We had a great chat tonight and she actually thanked me for making her eat. I could cry! A mere few months ago she was throwing china plates at me and planning suicide. It is just the worst and it feels like there is no way out of it but it gets better I promise. Wishing you all strength to get through this.