Teen Eating Disorders Thread 4

[SoTiredNeedHoliday]

Starting a new thread, no 3 is full

Awww, I didn’t see your last comment that DD let you rub her feet. That must have been a touching moment. We grab these fleeting moments when we can!!

I think the not wanting to grow up thing is fairly common. My Dd is like this. Well behind her peers in terms of interests etc. They all want to chase boys and obsessively watch and make Tik tok s and she doesn’t get it at all. She is trying to change by buying more fashionable clothes and she had her long hair cut off but her heart isn’t really in it.
I was exactly the same at her age, she is also young in her year,
But even my eldest at 17 is freaking out about all the uni plans etc and he doesn’t have an ED!

Hi everyone, I’ve not been on for awhile - just trying to catch up with all the posts!

I’m not doing a good job with DS at all. I weighed him this morning and he is 40.7kg. Exactly the same as when I first found this thread in March (I think). So he’s not grown at all in the last 3-4 months. What would his wfh be now @Lougle please? He’s 165cm (still) and Dec 07 birthday.

On the plus side we finally have a Consultant Surgeon on our side. GP has been saying DS weight is fine and he is a healthy weight but the surgeon we saw (seen for unrelated reason) was shocked how thin he is and has written to the GP to say he is obviously underweight and needs vitamin and protein supplements as his weight could adversely effect his recovery from the surgery.

I’m glad someone is finally listening and taking his weight seriously. The surgeon was great and told DS that food is medicine and he needed to eat. Which is good because the GP telling us he was a healthy weight was a green light to DS to continue to eat the bare minimum.

I'm glad someone is listening, @NelleBee. He's 81.32% now. Just keep plodding.

I wasn't too happy yesterday. DD1 stayed for lunch for the first time at school. Instead of supervising her, they let her play with her friends. She didn't eat her roll. The teacher told me she'd 'managed to get her to have a bit more of her lunch' at pick up. When we got home, she said she couldn't have afternoon snack as she was full from what she had just before leaving school. Today I've told them that they need to supervise her.

I can see why you wouldn’t be happy @Lougle They need to supervise properly as it’s obviously going to have a knock on effect.

I can’t remember whether 81% is ok or not? I’m
told you need to be 75% to qualify for ED team in our area, so 81% seems not too bad?

81% for us meant no wheelchair and part time school. 85% was full time school but no PE.

80%+ seems to be crucial where we are - she was allowed to go to school but like Lougle, no sport until 85. The trouble is that it's only a bad week away from crossing back down to 70something.

Sigh.

@Rollergirl11, that's so funny, an extra piercing is one of our bribes too. I haven't said a specific weight or anything and we shouldn't probably be resorting to bribery, but god, we use what we can.

Ah ok. He does no sport anyway so that’s good. Even at school he spends half the day balled up asleep!

I think the wfh it very dependent on where they would normally sit on growth charts although it does seem for most kids they only achieve recovery at 100% plus 😕

I'm tired it's been such a busy week and works very full on atm as well

DD1 did her first full day at school today. She didn't eat her roll again - 'I was gagging, Mum' and apparently asked to go home 'many times' (teacher) or 'at least 10 times' (DD1), but got through the day.

53kg now, so 96% WFH. She's now moving to maintenance.

Glad she made it through the day lougle - hopefully on Monday she will eat her roll.

@NelleBee sorry to hear that DS hasn’t increased. Are you doing 3 + 3 with him? Hopefully the consultant surgeon saying about his weight will bring some gravitas to the situation and you can use to your advantage.

Lougle sorry to hear that DD didn’t eat at school again but glad she managed to stay for the whole day. Remind me how old your DD is again?

DD has had a good week for weight gain and has put on 1kg when I weighed her this morning. Lougle, would you mind doing WFH for me? She is now 44.9kg, 57cms and 02/04/06. She is now only 2kg away from being weight restored (her weight before the restricting). But she is still displaying so much ED behaviour. Do I keep on pushing with the weight gain when we hit her target weight or will she then move on to maintenance? I will ask all this to her care-coordinator but I reckon she will just say that DD is weight restored so she doesn’t need to go any higher and not take her mental state in to consideration at all. Does the mental improvement take a little time to catch up or does it only come when they are at the weight that they need to be at? I know that DD will argue so we just keep on going feeding and feeding waiting for her to be magically better? I have to admit that I can see where she’s coming from on this.

Roller everything I have read has said to keep pushing weight over 100% wfh. The brain and body have lots of catching up to do and they need calories and fat stores to do it. CAMHs seem to think dd is fine at 98% wfh but I definitely feel she needs to go higher as mentally she is still completely entrenched in ED thoughts and behaviours. It's hard though as the higher they go on wfh the more calories they need!!

So we're just back from dd doing dog Agilty (an hour of running round a field with the dog) and she's off to meet her friends in a bit for a Macdonalds and cinema trip. I'm keeping everything crossed this goes well, she even mentioned possibly having some of her friends pick n mix for afternoon snack.... we will see.

@Rollergirl11 your DD is only 15, so it would be natural for her to continue to gain weight over time for a while. So aiming for her pre-ED weight would be too low, imo. Her ideal weight (100%) is 49.51kg. She's currently 90.7% WFH.

DD1 is 15, too, but December birthday and 165cm tall.

I'm finding the idea of maintenance quite strange. I'm so used to trying to make her gain. I've abandoned calorie counting for now and I'm trying to be a bit more intuitive rather than routined. Wouldn't dare say that in the FB group though!

Thanks for that Lougle. I was a bit confused as CAMH’s said she was 92% wfh on Monday but I forgot that they weigh her with clothes on and it’s late afternoon whereas I weigh her first thing in the morning unclothed so that explains the discrepancy.

Are you not aiming for 100% then if you’re starting to maintain now at 96%?

Haha lougle that group has gone a bit mad recently!!

So dd managed the macdonalds but when I picked her up she was very agitated saying she's not done enough exercise and she shouldn't have eaten it. Not helped by the fact that dd said she saw the calorie content and couldn't really avoid seeing it.

Oh well at least she ate it.

@Rollergirl11 I’ve never managed to get him to have 3 snacks and 3 meals in a day. He feels that is too much food for him. I don’t know how to make him do something he doesn’t want to do.

This is a problem in all areas of his life, in that no one can ever make him do something he doesn’t want to do. It doesn’t matter what consequence you throw at him. He will literally sit at school all day doing nothing if he doesn’t want to do the work. Bribes and rewards don’t seem to work as there is nothing he wants more than to not do the thing he doesn’t want to do, if that makes sense.

The only thing that works a little bit is taking his iPad. But often results in him violently slamming his head into a wall. Is it ok to say eat that and no iPad until you’ve eaten it?

NelleeBee yes I absolutely would use whatever I could as leverage to ensure that they eat what is put in front of them. Is he eating at school? Does he like going to school? Could that be something you could use too? If he doesn’t eat he doesn’t get to go to school? Although I’m guessing that might be hard to enforce if he hasn’t been given a diagnosis, which I assume he hasn’t if the GP doesn’t think he’s underweight?

If I told him not eating meant no school he would never eat again! He actually does eat at school, the support staff keep an eye on him.

I showed him the letter the surgeon has sent about his weight so we’ve been discussing ways he can increase his protein and calories. He asked me earlier how he could increase his calories without increasing volume as he says he just can’t cope with eating anymore than already does.

@Rollergirl11 the psychiatrist felt she'd be a healthy weight at 95% WFH. She's never been big. We'll see though. If she doesn't seem 'better' then I'll push up a bit higher.

Struggling here. Dd is following the meal plan - it's very much stuck to, but she's not gained any weight for a couple of weeks. I think the meal plan isn't enough for her needs but she won't eat any more because it's not on the meal plan!

That is hard, @NCTDN - do you need a third party to introduce a plan with more calories? I always found it easier to say 'X said we need to...'

Yes I'm hoping the dietitian will say she's needs to add more in, but hasn't even though I've pretty much asked.
At 17 she's too aware of calories and ingredients for me to add anything on unknown to her.
It's hard because she is being so compliant, but only if it's written down.

Oh I presume my bottom has been smacked by a moderator - they've turned off comments on my FB post. Oh well, I'm glad I said my piece.

Lougle I’ve messaged you re the FB group. I have huge concerns re that particularly group and others like it, I know I’m not alone.