DD14 not eating. What now?

[sammyspoon]

We've only just started picking up on the signs. She's always been such a great eater. Started with noticing her lunch wasn't being eaten. Then she stopped eating breakfast. Then said she couldn't eat lunch at school because of the canteen atmosphere. She was still snacking after school and eating dinner but that's all changed over the last 6 weeks. She’s struggling to eat anything at all. I realise now there are plenty of other signs. She looks terrible.
It came to a head last night and she admitted she needs help. I already have a GP appointment for her on Monday but should I do something sooner? I feel so guilty and out of my depth.

Also, just to warn you. The most difficult and darkest days were once it truly became apparent that my daughter had anorexia and when we really started to become serious about treating it. She shouted, she swore, it was like she'd had a personality transplant. Eating disorders are all about control and we were taking that away from her in order to feed her (and keep her alive). Watch out for other forms of self-harm. You need to watch your daughter so so closely. I'm not saying this to frighten you but just to make you aware of the reality. The days and weeks when we were first on the 3 meals, 3 snacks plan were the days my daughter felt most wretched and (later) she told me she did have suicidal ideation during those times. Those weeks are also a real blur to her- she does not have much memory of them.

I also found this website useful, although it is American so obviously a lot of the healthcare stuff is different:
https://www.feast-ed.org/

Your DH seeking help isn’t a bad idea as you both need to be in this together.

If she is on the 12th centile, she isn’t that thin yet.

Is she really not getting 500 calories with the ‘fat’ balls that she is willing to eat, plus nuts and veg? 500 (kilo)calories is a very small amount.

I went to a talk on this with one of the private units that treats anorexia and they said the first stage of treatment was basically entirely focused on making them eat. Apparently, until they get to a basic weight, they are not that amenable to psychological treatment, as their hormones and mental processes have also become unbalanced.

So, until she can be seen professionally, I think the focus should be food, using whatever levers you can to make her eat (whether it is bribery, blackmail, or just not letting her leave the table until she has eaten a basic amount).

If the NHS eating disorder unit cannot see her, there are private facilities that specialise in this (obviously they aren’t cheap). If you have the resources, I would look into this.

It is a horrible condition and you have my symp

@Newbutoldfather If she is on the 12th centile, she isn’t that thin yet. Is she really not getting 500 calories with the ‘fat’ balls that she is willing to eat, plus nuts and veg? 500 (kilo)calories is a very small amount.

That sounds a bit gaslighting! Hoping you didn’t mean it to sound that way or be so flippant.
OP didn’t say if the 12th centile refers to her weight (where her height could be 90th) or if 12th centile is her BMI - either way that’s thin and currently rather irrelevant as she’s lost 5kg in 8 weeks, so 11bs in two months. She’s 14 so should be gaining weight. It’s a very slippery slope.

Seeking early help is really important before it gets out of control. Early intervention normally results in a quicker recovery

@NotDonna I agree. Anything over 1kg a week of weight loss is generally our “danger” area so the OPs DD is very much there, especially if it’s getting worse. 500 calories can also be a fair amount of food, especially if eating mostly fruit and veg which is very low calorie-plus the aim for a teenage girl to maintain is really 2500 calories so that needs to be the target. 500 calories is the very minimum needed to sustain organ function.

I agree when I was doing DDs food diary - I then added it up on My Fitness Plan and was quite shocked at how low calorie many foodstuffs are.

@sammyspoon ive been thinking of you today & hoping you’ve received some professional guidance?

Thanks @NotDonna. Still waiting for contact from ED clinic. Saw GP today who will chase up but I think I just have to be patient. Now we are definitely getting a few more calories in DD, I'm thinking 1,000 today. She's going to come home from school every day for lunch now as we live close. She seems in better spirits this evening and was being kind to her sister.
She seems relieved to have confided in her closest friends, one who went through something similar. I guess now she's feeling less frightened and isolated.

Ah huge well done to you both. Keep up the great work! Hoping you get an appt soon.

I'm so pleased we've just received an appointment confirmation for next Thursday. In the meantime the Eva Musby book has been carrying us through.
Thanks so much for the support you all gave me here in the first horrendous days.

Ahh well done. Get yourself a written list of questions ready so you can ask whatever you need to at the appointment

Haven’t RTFT, but so glad to hear that she’s got an appointment at last.

Just a quick suggestion re. Dairy. Would she consider oat or soy milk as substitutes? My DD went off cow’s milk a couple of years ago and much prefers oat milk. You could also try non-dairy yoghurts. Wishing you all the best. 💐

I’ve just picked up your thread. I hope your dd will be ok. I won’t burden this thread with our situation, but thank you everyone for your posts. It is so helpful to give me a framework for my dd. I have just ordered the book on kindle.

@Mummyoflittledragon I wish you well. I'm usually a Mumsnet lurker rather than poster but this chat has carried me through the darkest days of parenting. We have a clear path of support now thank goodness.

Hi I have posted a few months back about the same DD 14. I have managed to take her to GP she had chat with a nurse she measured her etc. Things looking better now my girl put weight on is still controling what she eat but is sensible with eating. It was just a phase she went through. Now bothered about acne is eating more healthy food.

This is not a phase it is a serious mental illness.

Definitely not a phase. My DD is in her fifth year. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

My DD is a patient in the Eating Disorder service she has disordered eating with anorexia traits. When we were waiting for the appointment to start treatment I was advised by our GP to capitalise on what she would still eat and drink:

• tea/ coffee with full fat milk
• milkshakes (mcdonalds has a good calorie count)
• costa latte
• Drinking chocolate
• Tried build up drinks but she hated those
• adding hummus to pepper and cucumber sticks
• changing low fat spread to high fat butter
• full calorie yoghurt
• melted chocolate with fruit to dip in
• started on a multivitamin etc…
• having her favourite snacks available
• I removed the scales and tried to make meals less pressured

Once she became a patient she started on the refeed program- which for us was 3 snacks and 3 meals a day from a list of foods/ meals - about 2450 calories a day - which is alot when they haven’t eaten (this is our local service yours may be different). They made a decision that she could go to school still but she absolutely had to eat before driving lessons or I was to cancel the lesson. Its been slow progress in 6 months she has put on 6 pounds but its better than it was - for the moment. I am sending you virtual hugs as this by far has been one of the toughest times we have had, I have everything crossed that your DD is seen soon.

As a parent we have had support from BEAT and the ED service does parent support and education xx

Hi OP,
really glad you have a referral now.
my niece had an ED and I remember some of the things that my brother told me that stuck with me. I thoguht I'd stick them on here for anyone else reading who needs it.
-early intervention is essential, and it is urgent.
-she needs weighing every week by a medical professional. At those weigh ins, they also listened to heart rate/blood pressure, and a couple of times she was hospitalised from those weigh ins as they were not happy with her heart.
-the BEAT website and book were really helpful
-when you are at less than 80% of your body weight, the way you think changes, it causes really nasty behaviour and a sort of self protectedness. One reason that they targeted weight gain so much was that until their weight came up above the 80% mark, they were not really able to function well mentally in terms of making good choices. My brother said they really saw that with her, as her weight came up it was like she came bakc to herself out of a mental fog

they also stopped her from doing all exercise as she was doing 300 starjumps in her bedroom etc. She got very very sneaky about doing exercise. At one point in hospital she was confined to bed to keep her still.

My DD is Neuro diverse with ADHD and probable ASD. ND girls have a very high likelihood of ED. I know people who are firmly of the view that all girls with ED should be assessed.
Is this something you have ever considered? They also suffer a lot of social anxiety

@steppemum Oh, that reminds me of a childhood friend who developed anorexia. She would exercise constantly and ask me to come with her on long walks. I didn’t understand until much later that she had an ED. I sometimes think about those walks, she’d talk about how many calories were in various foods. 🙁

ADHD kids often don't eat much due meds so we focus on high calorie snacks. Nuts. Cashew / peanut.
Peanut butter. Nutella. Bananas.
Youth nutrition protein shakes.
Humus. Salami. Cheese spead.