Re: New here- 11 year old DD diagnosed with OCD and Anorexia

[Guest guest]

Welcome, .

So many of the things you've mentioned that your daughter is dealing

with, are things others have shared in here too. So, I'm sure you will

get responses from others, who can share their experiences, that will

hopefully help.

Our son also did some of the things you mentioned. But with the

correct therapy CBT/ERP, and medication, he is doing much better.

Glad you ordered a book on OCD too. It's so helpful to understand

what you are dealing with. Especially when OCD rituals morph into new

things, because it can be confusing. We found that just when we would

get one thing under control with CBT/ERP, OCD would change the

thoughts associated with the ritual (compulsion), or morph into

something new altogether. The key seemed to be for our son to be able

to recognize it as OCD, then confront it immediately, before it had

time to grow, using CBT/ERP.

I had a nephew (with OCD) who also stopped eating and was exercising

excessively. He was a bit chubby, so at first it seemed okay, but he

took it too far and started looking very gaunt. He did not see a

doctor about it, but I found myself wondering if it was prompted

totally by OCD, or if he had crossed over into the anorexia realm. It

seemed to grow over time too, as he ate less and less, and his

exercise time lasted longer and longer. Seems I remember reading once

that anorexia can be related to anxiety, although I really have no

knowledge of it. But, I do know that with OCD, since it is an anxiety

disorder, you can often have other anxiety issues. Our son also had

GAD, and at one point, when things were out of control for him, he was

having panic attacks too. It's one for the doctors to sort out, so

glad you are seeing a doctor who is monitoring it.

In case you are interested, here are some books we found very helpful

when learning about OCD. . .

What to do when your Child has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Aureen

Pinto Wagner Ph.D.

Freeing Your Child from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Tamar E. Chansky

Talking Back to OCD by March

Helping Your Child With Ocd: A Workbook for Parents of Children With

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Lee Fitzgibbons and Cherry Pedrick

The last two are workbooks that walk you through CBT and ERP, which is

the only evidence based therapy proven to improve OCD.

Glad you found us. )

BJ

>

> Hi there. My name is and I joined about 2 weeks ago. I have

> been reading the posts and have gotten some good information. It's

> nice to know that I am not the only one going through this, but wish

> that none of us had to.

>

> Just a little hx of my daughter. My daughter is one of those kids

> that is a perfectionist and sees things as very black and white. When

> she was in preschool she was worried that her teacher was going to

> jail because she had a kid and was not married.

>

> I did not notice the OCD for what it was for quite a few years. In

> First grade she started not wanting to ride the bus. She would freak

> out and refused to get on it. She did fine at school once she was

> there but I guess looking back she was worrying about what could

> happen. Mostly now she tells me her fears were about something

> happening to me while she was at school.

>

> Other signs that I still did not pick up on were that she would be in

> a class such as gymnastics, doing fine, nothing going wrong, but all

> of a sudden out of nowhere she would not want to go and have a

> complete panic attack. To the best of my knowledge I believe this

> happened when she felt that she was not the best in the class. When

> she was in a class where the majority of the kids were younger she

> did fine- but when there was varing levels of skill and she was not

> in the higher skilled end she would feel anxiety.

>

> She has always been a people pleaser.

>

> About four years ago on a summer retreat with my church worship group

> my son who was about 5 at the time, got sick and threw up on his

> sleeping bag. For over a year my daughter would not get anywhere near

> that sleeping bag. It was contaminated in her mind, even after it had

> been washed several times, she was certain she would get sick from

> it. That winter her hands were chapped and since it was winter I

> assumed that it was from the wind and cold weather. But one day she

> was taking a shower and I asked her why she was taking another shower

> because she had showered earlier that day. She said she was afraid of

> getting sick. That is when it clicked on about her hands and she

> admitted that she was washing compulsively.

>

> We started seeing a counselor and by the end of the year she seemed

> to be fine for the most part. She was doing well for awhile and then

> was in a car accident with her grandparents (my inlaws)- it was not

> too bad but it caused a lot of mental trauma for my daughter and she

> went into other ocd behaviors and fears and still to this day does

> not want to be alone with the inlaws because she is afraid something

> bad will happen. Her grandparents would never intentionally hurt her,

> but they do have poor judgement and my MIL says things that are

> inappropriate to say to a child and things that make my daughter

> stressful. That is another story but for example, after my daughter

> returned from a trip out of state to visit my parents, my MIL asked

> my daughter if she had a good time with her Nana and when Kaitlyn

> said Yes, she said something to the effect of " Well i guess you don't

> like it here in the country anymore " . Just things that make my

> daughter feel guilty.

>

> She started seeing the counselor again to deal with the car accident

> anxiety. Fear of travelling a certain distance from home. etc. then

> and that was the summer before 3rd grade. During the school year

> another thing that happened is she started to beg to be homeschooled.

> I would ask if anything happened at school that I should know about.

> The answer would always be no. She was doing fine with school (always

> has been a good student)- had friends. etc. When I would tell her

> teacher she had anxiety they could not believe it. She would hide it

> well at school and it would come out at home. She would do well

> during the week and during the weekend she would get more and more

> upset about returning to school on Monday. Finally in April I agreed

> to homeschool. So, I pulled both kids out of school and started to

> homeschool. In September I put my son back in school and Kaitlyn was

> still getting counseling from the accident. Around February she was

> starting to say she really did want to go back to school in Jr High-

> but I said that if she went to public school for 6th- then she should

> go to 5th grade and then because I was dealing with depression of my

> own, and felt we werent doing enough schooling we both decided that

> she would go back to school. So, she entered into the 4th grade and

> now is in the 5th and as far as school is concerned she loves it and

> does not really have any anxietys about school. She stopped seeing

> the counselor by the end of the school year.

>

> Then this last summer towards the end of summer I noticed that she

> was exercising a lot. She is a very thin girl and never has had a

> weight problem. I was noticing that she was being compulsive about

> it. She had to walk a certain amount of times around the cul-de-sac,

> lift a certain amount of reps of weights,etc. School started and she

> continued this routine. I did not notice that she was eating so very

> little and really did not notice a sudden weight loss. I was

> concerned with the obsessive nature of the exercise. I told her it

> was fine to exercise but when she felt that she HAD to do it no

> matter what, then that was a problem. One day I came in the kitchen

> when she was making her lunch and saw that she was only packing 1/2 a

> sandwich and putting a trace amount of peanut butter on it and that

> was her whole lunch.

>

> I scheduled a physical for her in November and she brought a list of

> questions for the doctors. The list went something like this. " what

> is a calorie? " " Do I burn calories when I am sitting? " , " what is the

> difference between a fat calorie and a regular calorie? " etc. This

> combined with my daughters weight 63.5 pounds for an 11 year old girl

> who is 4ft 9 " the doctor told her she was concerned that she may be

> starting to be anorexic. She explained this to my daughter. Gave her

> some guidelines to follow and asked to see us again in two weeks. My

> daughter came back in with a weight loss bringing her down to close

> to 62 pounds. The doctor officially diagnosed the anorexia and we

> discussed the OCD behaviors. My daughter had to be back in another

> week. Had a small gain, another week had a small loss. Last

> appointment, 2 weeks ago the doctor decided to start her on prozac-

> (very small dose)- since the OCD symptoms seemed to be getting worse.

> My daughter told the doctor that she noticed that if she kicked her

> leg once, then she would need to kick it 10 more times or she felt

> something bad would happen. The same thing with shutting cubboards.

>

> We went back in for a visit after 2 weeks on the meds and she did

> have a little over 2 pound gain, but it is still like pulling teeth

> to get her to eat, and she is getting too many of her calories from

> sucking candies, treats, etc. She says her OCD is better though and

> does not feel compelled to do any of the compulsive behaviors that

> she was doing. She is still focused on calories though.

>

> My husband recently got laid off and we are now on state insurance

> and it was hard finding someone in the mental health field to see

> her, but we do finally now have an appointment for monday so I am

> hoping that the counseling in addition to the medication will help

> her with some coping mechanisms. I have also ordered a book that was

> recommended on this board and have talked to her about naming her OCD

> and she seems to like that idea.

>

> I am curious if anyone else here is dealing with an eating disorder

> in addition to the OCD.

>

> I am also curious about the heredity link with other mental illnesses

> and OCD. I ask this because a few people have mentioned their own

> illnesses and I take medication for anxiety/depression and my mom was

> Bi-polar (she is passed away) and my husbands Dad is.

>

> I know this is a long post. Thanks for hanging in there. Looking

> forward to " meeting " more of you. Thanks for the support.

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

My daughter developed an eating disorder related to her OCD. It

started when she was 12 (now 16 and much better). B/c she was thin to

start it became dangerous. She was never diagnosed with classic

anorexia because her eating had rituals to keep it safe that were

unrelated to calories or weight gain (it seemed to evolve from a

severe viral stomach bug). Still the effect was dramatic and she

ended up hospitalized locally (then discharged with no help for the

problem b/c it was not " anorexia " according to DSM, since when her

ritual was accomodated she would eat well- so we had no " code " to

keep her there per insurance). After many emgcy rooms visits, many

attempts at therapy, an extremely traumatic psych hold that was

initiated against our will (and made things exponentially worse), she

finally she spent 4 mo at UCLA which probably saved her life. They

have a non-negotiable minutely supervised eating protocol that puts

the weight back on in an emgcy, then (after weight begins to be

restored) help to figure out how to approach the problem

therapeutically.

One problem we had in getting help is that it was not " anorexic "

calorie restriction according to body image ideas etc, but

superstitious fears relatad to OCD, so (pre-UCLA) therapy attempts

were very imprecise, if not making things worse. I learned that alot

of kids in fact have non-classic " anorexia " and that therapists who

can work on both fronts (OCD and anorexia) would be helpful. But

since your d does seem to to be be thinking alot about calories maybe

this does not quite apply.

Another thing I learned is that doctors or therapists who tell you to

back off when your child is not eating may be putting that child in

danger. It is not really something you can hope will correct itself

once it gets out of hand, plus the loss of nutrition and calories can

affect the brain and make pre-existing OCD behaviors snowball by

increasing rigidity and lack of insight.

A site you could check out is the Maudsley Parents message board,

parents share experiences re eating disorders and practial help about

increasing calories, diet strategies, therapy, and how to keep their

child eating. I think their hope (at that site) is that parents who

can be proactive early on with a child's eating disorder can maybe

offset a spiral down into a medically dangerous situation.

nancy grace

>

> Hi there. My name is and I joined about 2 weeks ago. I have

> been reading the posts and have gotten some good information. It's

> nice to know that I am not the only one going through this, but

wish

> that none of us had to.

>

> Just a little hx of my daughter. My daughter is one of those kids

> that is a perfectionist and sees things as very black and white.

When

> she was in preschool she was worried that her teacher was going to

> jail because she had a kid and was not married.

>

> I did not notice the OCD for what it was for quite a few years. In

> First grade she started not wanting to ride the bus. She would

freak

> out and refused to get on it. She did fine at school once she was

> there but I guess looking back she was worrying about what could

> happen. Mostly now she tells me her fears were about something

> happening to me while she was at school.

>

> Other signs that I still did not pick up on were that she would be

in

> a class such as gymnastics, doing fine, nothing going wrong, but

all

> of a sudden out of nowhere she would not want to go and have a

> complete panic attack. To the best of my knowledge I believe this

> happened when she felt that she was not the best in the class. When

> she was in a class where the majority of the kids were younger she

> did fine- but when there was varing levels of skill and she was not

> in the higher skilled end she would feel anxiety.

>

> She has always been a people pleaser.

>

> About four years ago on a summer retreat with my church worship

group

> my son who was about 5 at the time, got sick and threw up on his

> sleeping bag. For over a year my daughter would not get anywhere

near

> that sleeping bag. It was contaminated in her mind, even after it

had

> been washed several times, she was certain she would get sick from

> it. That winter her hands were chapped and since it was winter I

> assumed that it was from the wind and cold weather. But one day she

> was taking a shower and I asked her why she was taking another

shower

> because she had showered earlier that day. She said she was afraid

of

> getting sick. That is when it clicked on about her hands and she

> admitted that she was washing compulsively.

>

> We started seeing a counselor and by the end of the year she seemed

> to be fine for the most part. She was doing well for awhile and

then

> was in a car accident with her grandparents (my inlaws)- it was not

> too bad but it caused a lot of mental trauma for my daughter and

she

> went into other ocd behaviors and fears and still to this day does

> not want to be alone with the inlaws because she is afraid

something

> bad will happen. Her grandparents would never intentionally hurt

her,

> but they do have poor judgement and my MIL says things that are

> inappropriate to say to a child and things that make my daughter

> stressful. That is another story but for example, after my daughter

> returned from a trip out of state to visit my parents, my MIL asked

> my daughter if she had a good time with her Nana and when Kaitlyn

> said Yes, she said something to the effect of " Well i guess you

don't

> like it here in the country anymore " . Just things that make my

> daughter feel guilty.

>

> She started seeing the counselor again to deal with the car

accident

> anxiety. Fear of travelling a certain distance from home. etc. then

> and that was the summer before 3rd grade. During the school year

> another thing that happened is she started to beg to be

homeschooled.

> I would ask if anything happened at school that I should know

about.

> The answer would always be no. She was doing fine with school

(always

> has been a good student)- had friends. etc. When I would tell her

> teacher she had anxiety they could not believe it. She would hide

it

> well at school and it would come out at home. She would do well

> during the week and during the weekend she would get more and more

> upset about returning to school on Monday. Finally in April I

agreed

> to homeschool. So, I pulled both kids out of school and started to

> homeschool. In September I put my son back in school and Kaitlyn

was

> still getting counseling from the accident. Around February she was

> starting to say she really did want to go back to school in Jr High-

> but I said that if she went to public school for 6th- then she

should

> go to 5th grade and then because I was dealing with depression of

my

> own, and felt we werent doing enough schooling we both decided that

> she would go back to school. So, she entered into the 4th grade and

> now is in the 5th and as far as school is concerned she loves it

and

> does not really have any anxietys about school. She stopped seeing

> the counselor by the end of the school year.

>

> Then this last summer towards the end of summer I noticed that she

> was exercising a lot. She is a very thin girl and never has had a

> weight problem. I was noticing that she was being compulsive about

> it. She had to walk a certain amount of times around the cul-de-

sac,

> lift a certain amount of reps of weights,etc. School started and

she

> continued this routine. I did not notice that she was eating so

very

> little and really did not notice a sudden weight loss. I was

> concerned with the obsessive nature of the exercise. I told her it

> was fine to exercise but when she felt that she HAD to do it no

> matter what, then that was a problem. One day I came in the kitchen

> when she was making her lunch and saw that she was only packing 1/2

a

> sandwich and putting a trace amount of peanut butter on it and that

> was her whole lunch.

>

> I scheduled a physical for her in November and she brought a list

of

> questions for the doctors. The list went something like this. " what

> is a calorie? " " Do I burn calories when I am sitting? " , " what is

the

> difference between a fat calorie and a regular calorie? " etc. This

> combined with my daughters weight 63.5 pounds for an 11 year old

girl

> who is 4ft 9 " the doctor told her she was concerned that she may be

> starting to be anorexic. She explained this to my daughter. Gave

her

> some guidelines to follow and asked to see us again in two weeks.

My

> daughter came back in with a weight loss bringing her down to close

> to 62 pounds. The doctor officially diagnosed the anorexia and we

> discussed the OCD behaviors. My daughter had to be back in another

> week. Had a small gain, another week had a small loss. Last

> appointment, 2 weeks ago the doctor decided to start her on prozac-

> (very small dose)- since the OCD symptoms seemed to be getting

worse.

> My daughter told the doctor that she noticed that if she kicked her

> leg once, then she would need to kick it 10 more times or she felt

> something bad would happen. The same thing with shutting cubboards.

>

> We went back in for a visit after 2 weeks on the meds and she did

> have a little over 2 pound gain, but it is still like pulling teeth

> to get her to eat, and she is getting too many of her calories from

> sucking candies, treats, etc. She says her OCD is better though and

> does not feel compelled to do any of the compulsive behaviors that

> she was doing. She is still focused on calories though.

>

> My husband recently got laid off and we are now on state insurance

> and it was hard finding someone in the mental health field to see

> her, but we do finally now have an appointment for monday so I am

> hoping that the counseling in addition to the medication will help

> her with some coping mechanisms. I have also ordered a book that

was

> recommended on this board and have talked to her about naming her

OCD

> and she seems to like that idea.

>

> I am curious if anyone else here is dealing with an eating disorder

> in addition to the OCD.

>

> I am also curious about the heredity link with other mental

illnesses

> and OCD. I ask this because a few people have mentioned their own

> illnesses and I take medication for anxiety/depression and my mom

was

> Bi-polar (she is passed away) and my husbands Dad is.

>

> I know this is a long post. Thanks for hanging in there. Looking

> forward to " meeting " more of you. Thanks for the support.

>

>

>