16 year old son says food makes him feel sick and is barely eating

[Honey2]

Over the last 12 months or so my son has developed an issue with food and eating. He says the thought of food makes him sick and there are very few foods he wants to eat. He’s barely eating anything at home, preferring to eat takeaway like fried chicken for example - which is probably all he’ll eat in a day - when he is out with friends (He buys this not me).

As a child he wasn’t fussy with food and in fact as a pre-teen/early teen he was eating a lot.

He has always had a sweet tooth for things like jelly sweets, ice cream and fizzy drinks - which we don’t have that often at home but he buys his own.

He is very slim (5ft 9 and 57kg) and I think he is loosing weight.
At beginning he did see a dr about feeling sick at the thought of eating. First Dr said it could be the antibiotics he was taking for his skin. So he stopped them and it was No better. Second Dr gave him an antacid. No real improvement either, but I’m not 100% he routinely took them.

Its become a source of tension between us. I can tell it’s causing him stress but he won’t go back to the Dr and just moans all the time that there is ‘nothing he can eat’ despite me offering to taking him shopping to identify foods he thinks he might like.

it doesn’t help that we are in the thick of the very difficult teenage years where he’s incredibly difficult to talk too and of course it’s all may fault.

I think what might have started as a physical issue is now moving to a mental issue with food.

really stuck on how to support / help him!

The takeaway fried chicken doesnt make sense. If food makes him feel sick this is an odd thing to be able to stomach. Are you sure he’s even eating that? Can you recreate it at home? He must be eating something else - even if losing weight - unless he eats that everyday? Perhaps he’s getting calories through drinks.

It sounds as if he has developed an eating disorder. Maybe go the gp on your own first for urgent advice.

Are you sure he’s eating when he’s out?

It's not about the food, it's about his emotional/mental health. The not eating is a symptom, not the actual problem. Ask via pastoral at his school/college for a referral to the mental health in schools team, and also ask for a referral to CAMHS for disordered eating support via school or gp. See if you can access a parenting course to help you to talk to him to in a way he feels able to open up about his difficulties

I wouldn’t assume straight off the bat that this is a MH issue.

lots of people have intolerances such as dairy or coeliac that really start to make themselves felt in the teenage years.

eating something you are intolerant to does give you nausea and vague stomach pains.

I was dairy intolerant and only worked it out at uni and promptly started putting on weight (was very thin up till that point).

to be fair to him the doctors sound pretty useless. They generally are for this sort of thing.

It really sounds like an eating disorder. The quicker you can act the better. I went to the GP with my daughter and we were referred and seen by the eating disorder service within the space of a week.

Look up gastroparesis

Sounds like ARFID op.

When I was first developing Crohn's Disease as a teen, part of how it manifested was nausea and not wanting to eat. Not diagnosing him, just agreeing that it may be either a physical or mental health problem and he needs to go back to the doctor.

An elderly relative in my family suddenly developed a nauseous feeling and all food tasted off after an illness. It took a couple of months too clear I think.
As a mum I’d be worried too, but I’d want to rule out physical reasons as well as bearing in mind mental health.

I also wouldn't automatically assume an eating disorder, and I was going to suggest Crohn's. A close family member went through something very similar which onset in his teenage years and unfortunately took decades to be diagnosed.

@Honey2 Sounds like an eating disorder so he needs therapy rather than a gp. There are toxic male influencers telling young lads to only eat protein in order to build muscles- can this be it?

I was also thinking Crohn's. My daughter would only eat mashed potatoes with gravy, chicken nuggets and wotsits. She was grey and skinny. She also had chronic diarrhea but didn't tell me.

It would be a good idea to request a test called "fecal calprotectin" from the GP.

I have this too. The best answer that I’ve had is that it’s a form of IBS. I’ve started a new probiotic/prebiotic which I’m hoping will help a bit but it’s deeply unpleasant. I have suffered from eating disorders in the past but this is quite a different thing (although has made recovery difficult in the past).

I was like this as a teenager. I was eventually diagnosed coeliac with lactose intolerance.

Does it seem worse if he's had a longer period of not eating (so even lower blood sugar than usual)? I believe some autoimmune things can have nausea from low blood sugar and then associated feeling sick from eating.

Also/or are his joints quite flexible? Connective tissue laxity can have effects on eating due to how the gut functions, I've been told.

Yes! A lot of this I recognise. It does feel like he is having more of a sensory reaction to food than it being about weight loss. From the few bits of info I have managed to get out of him he wants to eat and doesn’t want to lose weight. He just seems to really struggle to ‘feel like eating’ or there is nothing that appeals to him - like he imagines it’s going to not taste nice or make him sick before he eats it.

he’s not diagnosed ADHD but he has many traits of it and when he was younger he was quick sensory about his clothing choices,

Thanks for all the helpful replies. I agree I’ll try and get him back to the Dr as I also want to rule out a medical issue. I do genuinely believe something medical is going on and the fact that he feels sick after eating is now leading him to worry about eating and choosy about food.