|
Hi everyone! I hope you’re all doing well! Thanksgiving is coming up, and I wanted to give out some tips for how to manage thanksgiving stress, because no other holiday is more about food than thanksgiving!
The first tip is to sit closer to the head of the table! If you sit at the middle of the table, you may feel more overwhelmed, so I like to sit further away because it gives me more space. The next tip is to put napkins or earplugs in your ears. For me, too much stimulation, especially sound stimulation, can make it harder for me to eat. So, I like to put napkins in my ears so the chatter isn’t as loud. You can use earplugs, but they’re more noticeable. The last tip is to sit next to someone that comforts you. This can help you feel less stressed out, because somebody is there for you. I hope you all enjoyed this post! Have a happy thanksgiving!
0 Comments
Hi everyone! It’s been a bit since I posted on the Ask Arfid website, but I’ve been making posts over on the @askarfid instagram page that I hope you like. Anyway, I was on a trip a few days ago, and I really didn’t want to eat the lunch. Nothing was wrong with it, I just didn’t want to eat because I had a stress afternoon ahead of me. When I get stressed, it’s harder for me to eat. But, my therapist recommended a strategy a few months ago that I wanted to share with you, because it has helped me so much.
So, if you feel like you can’t eat, remove yourself from the table, and sit somewhere else for two minutes. Then, visualize something truly relaxing. Maybe it’s a nice warm day at the beach, or you’re going skiing with your family. Or, maybe you’re just watching your favorite tv show. Either way, try to really think about the small details. Then, open your eyes after a minute or two of doing that, and you will probably be more comfortable eating your food. I hope this tip helps you as much as it has helped me! Have a great day! Hi everyone! Today, I wanted to talk about school lunches and snacks. School is stressful for almost everyone, and it can be even more stressful if you have ARFID. When I’m stressed, it’s harder for me to eat, so I don’t really try new foods during school. Instead, I try foods during the weekends or after school! This year, I increased the amount of food that I eat during lunch, and it wasn’t easy, but I figured out a way to help myself push through it. Last year, I ate the same lunch, with the only exception being that I switched my z-bar flavor every day, but this year, I went to the grocery store, and I found a lot of new options that have made eating lunch better! There were a few of flavors and foods that I wasn’t a fan of, but there were even more ones that I did like! Anyway, I just wanted to update you guys on what my life has been like, and I hope this post helps! Have a great day!
Hi everyone! I hope you’re having a wonderful, healthy week. I wanted to post an update about my nutrition. I’ve been recovering for more than 4 years, and one of the most common obstacles in my recovery are weight-related problems. I really want to gain weight, but it’s hard. I try to push myself and eat more each day, but it’s not easy, so my amazing dietician recommended that I change something in my diet. I normally have an extra pediasure every day to have some extra protein and calories, but my dietician said that I should be taking ensures instead. I was scared at first, but when I opened the bottle, it smelled just like the pediasure version! I was thrilled. More calories and protein with the same taste? It seemed too good to be true. Well, it actually was. When I had my first sip, I noticed that the ensure was much thicker than the pediasures. I was panicking, but then I added some water, and it solved my problem. Even though I was able to make the ensure better, it’s pretty common for me to not persevere and find a way to tolerate what I’m eating. However, I’m very proud of myself for finding a way to be healthy and push through. Anyway, I hope you all have a great week!
Hi everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. Today, I didn’t want to write a research roundup. I just wanted to talk about some ARFID-related things that happened to me this week.
I was watching TV yesterday, and in one of the scenes, a patient had a feeding tube. This may not seem like a big deal to most people, but it really triggered me. One of the scariest moments of my life was when I had to get a feeding tube in the hospital when I was being treated for ARFID, and I still get overwhelmed when I see or hear things relating to feeding tubes. I feel nauseated just writing this, but it’s important for me to do. It’s healing for me, in an odd way. Anyway, I almost had a panic attack just from one frame in a show, but that’s how it is sometimes. When that happened, my family supported me and completely understood what I was going through. I skipped the scenes in that episode, but all of those traumatic memories of mine were still overwhelming me. Anyway, I just wanted to share that story, and I hope you have a fantastic week! Hi everyone! Today, I have another research roundup, with some brand new amazing research!
A brand research paper was just published, and the topic is very interesting. This paper talks about the correlation between ARFID patients in PHP and the amount and types of sleep disturbances they experience. When I was in PHP, I definitely had my fair share of sleep issues, like staying asleep, falling asleep, and nightmares. I guess I wasn’t alone, because this new article shows that more than 75% of parents said that their children experience some kind of disturbance in their sleep. Please check it out, I would highly recommend reading it. Have a great day! https://www.cureus.com/articles/98403-sleep-and-avoidant-restrictive-food-intake-disorder-arfid-correlation-with-psychopathology-gender-and-academic-performance Hi everyone! We have some exciting news for you! The Ask Arfid website is going to have some great new changes, with recurring types of blog posts, like Research Roundup, Mental Health Monthly, and much more! I am so excited to share more about my story, other people’s stories, and different ways to help people who have or know someone with ARFID. We hope you are excited!
- Andersen Hi friends! I stumbled upon this great video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=441&v=hojezDpcC4E ), that was produced by Duke Health. While I am not advocating nor promoting them, I did think that this video was worth sharing. For someone with ARFID, this can be a great means to show friends and family about the struggle you or someone you love is undergoing. So often, when my son was ill, people would ask me what ARFID was. And even when I tried explaining ARFID to them, I still received many blank looks. When I said that the risks are similar to those with anorexia, suddenly everyone could relate, but educating people about ARFID was certainly challenging at times.
I think this video, while a bit drawn out, and does not cover all aspects of ARFID (i.e. fear of choking or vomiting), it does a great job of simplifying what ARFID is and how it may affect one's everyday life. I loved how it mentions that this boy does not like birthday parties, for example. My son hated attending birthday parties when he was younger and probably still does. Yet now he understands why and others do too. This helps to mitigate some of the social awkwardness amongst friends. When my son declines an invite made by his friends for a party of big event, they take it with a grain of salt and do not take it personally. To conclude, I think this video would have helped me a great deal while my son was in treatment. Check it out and let me know what you think, below in the comments section! Dear Parents of Ed,
Thank you for reaching out. This is an excellent question and is also an extremely difficult one, because either way you feel like you lose. If you admit your child into a hospital, your child will likely “hate” you, berate you, and make you feel like the worst parent in the world. Yet, if you don’t admit your child, you might very well be putting their life at risk, depending on how ill they are. In my opinion, if you are even questioning the topic of admittance, then you probably know what you need to do but you are hesitating to do it, which is completely understandable. Sometimes one parent believes treatment is needed but the other parent thinks you might be blowing things out of proportion and/or that hospital treatment is unnecessary. When parents feel divided on the topic, it complicates things even further. What makes the decision even harder, is your child is likely to have tons of anger toward you. This is very typical when the brain is starved. It is the cognitive portion of the brain that is often affected when the brain is starved. This affects things like, memory impairment, attention, and executive functioning so it is unlikely that you can sit down and talk logically about the need for more intensive treatment, with your child. For us, it was our son’s psychiatrist as well as his pediatrician that had, independently of one another, advised us to seek hospital treatment. At first we admitted him to a partial hospitalization program (PHP), where he was in intensive therapy for 12 hours of the day, 6 days a week. We felt like this was less of a drastic decision than to admit him into the inpatient program. We also were hopeful that the PHP would be able to resolve our son’s issues with eating and that he would begin to gain weight. Within the first week of PHP, we were called in by the hospital and told that we should urgently admit our son into the Denver inpatient hospital (within the next 48 hours). Apparently his vitals were not looking good (ie his heart rate was showing signs of distress and his bloodwork showed signs of malnutrition). We had not anticipated this escalating further then it already had and we felt like our heads were spinning out of control. In hindsight it is amazing how quickly the downward spiral happened with our son and therefore felt utterly unprepared for what was to happen next. 12 hours a day, 6 days a week felt like overkill to us and maybe we were being to rash with our decision? We had no choice and we were on a plane the very next morning. I remember questioning whether we made the right decision by bringing him to another state for medical treatment, or if we were making things worse for him by taking such “drastic” measures. After that we continued to question just about every decision we made. Once we admitted our son into the hospital, doctors said they needed to urgently install a feeding tube into his intestine so that they can get nutrients into his body and of course we questioned whether or not a feeding tube was necessary (even though it was). Then after seeing very little progress for the first several weeks, we once again we questioned if he would have gotten better on his own had we not admitted him in the first place. We questioned if we should remove the feeding tube because our son was becoming dependent on taking the food through the tube and was not eating any "real" food orally. Each time we relied on our son's team at the hospital to help guide us with the decision making even if we questioned it throughout the entire process. Then when our son finally turned the corner, with his recovery, we questioned whether our son was ready to be transferred from inpatient to outpatient care. And finally we questioned if he was ready to face the “real world” once he was released from the hospital. We walked blindly through this mess and put our trust into the doctors that were treating our son and followed our gut instincts. At the end of the day, the treatment our son received was top notch and the advice provided was amazing. Yes, there were a few times we didn’t follow the advice and there were many mistakes we made along the way, but our son’s team and my husband and I together, moved forward in recovery while we trepidatiously walked the path toward a better life for everyone in our family. Even after we got home, there remained so many questions such as what do you do if a relapse occurs? Will we need to re-admit our child? Will our son ever get better? The list of questions is endless and the only thing I have learned to answer, with certainty, is that it is best to take one day at a time. Once you make a decision, trust it and trust yourself. I decided to end today’s blog with an excerpt from my journal that I kept during the time our son was in the hospital. It was during the first 2 months when he was refusing to eat just about every piece of food that was laid before him. It was at a time when he was in Denver and we were in Austin. You will see how fearful I was on whether or not we had made the right decision on admitting our son. The pain sears through my body Not hearing his voice Not seeing his face Not holding his hand Perhaps we jumped the gun? Should we not have admitted? Are we killing our son? Did we do this to him? No, I remind myself he was so very ill. His brain was starving And his life, so dark This was no easy path, but the right one, I’m certain. Hi and welcome to our blog. I thought I would make my first blog about some of the signs, or “red flags” that you or your child may need medical/therapeutic attention for ARFID, based on our own experience. An important sign for us, that our son was becoming critically ill, was when he was classified as “failing to thrive,” by both his gastroenterologist and pediatrician. In an attempt to understand why he was faltering in his growth, his endocrinologist ordered a growth hormone test if he was deficient in growth hormone. When the results came in low but “normal,” the doctors blamed his lack of growth on malnutrition.
Malnutrition can be revealed in a variety of ways, such as through a low weight gain, weight loss, or insufficient growth. A doctor that checks a child’s growth chart can see that the curve is not progressing along the same path as it had previously been moving on. Malnutrition can also be detected through bloodwork, often through signs of anemia or hormones levels, or deficiencies of nutrients within the body. A child’s heart rate can be affected too. These are things that a pediatrician can test for should they suspect that your child is not thriving and/or suffering from malnutrition. More overtly, a clear sign that your child may be more than just a "picky eater" is a blatant refusal to eat food or certain categories and textures of food. You might notice that there there are many foods that you or your child used to enjoy but no longer will eat. You might observe that your child appears to be in “pain” when eating. He/she may be increasingly using supplement as a crutch to replace eating solid food. Maybe his/her doctor has gone so far as recommending you or your child have a feeding tube installed. Often, as ARFID progresses, the above signs are revealed through non-medical ways, such as your child becoming more forgetful (as a result of a starved brain). For my son, this would happen often. He also would “lose time” when he was talking to us. In the middle of a conversation, he would suddenly stop and stare blankly at the wall, then once we gently nudged him a bit, he would “wake up” and ask us what just happened. This is probably in more severe cases of malnutrition, but it is something to take seriously and seek urgent medical care. There are also more subtle signs that one can look out for, such as heightened isolation or an increase in depression/anxiety. The problem with the more subtle signs of ARFID is that it is easy to blame some of the above on your child being a “typical hormonal tween or adolescent” and therefore may get written off as a “normal” behavior. My son exhibited all of the above and more. Additionally, we had tried less intensive therapeutic techniques such as occupational therapy and regular therapy in conjunction with a psychiatrist. In hindsight, it is difficult for me to believe that I did not see so many of these symptoms. As a parent, I think we instinctively want push problems away because if we don’t admit them, they do not feel as real. We want to see our kids as being healthy and happy and when we don’t, we feel helpless and blame ourselves. My son was nothing but skin and bones when we urgently admitted him to the hospital. He was literally dwindling away right before our eyes and yet we couldn’t see it. Yes, we saw that he was skinny, but when you see somebody day in and day out, you don’t notice the changes that are happening right in front of you. It’s like when your kid is a year older, they still look exactly the same to you as the year before. It is not until you look at a picture from a year ago, that you are like, wow, look how much he has changed! When we were bringing my son to the hospital, we suddenly were able to step away from the situation and truly examine his emaciated body. It was then that we were horrified that we hadn’t noticed it sooner. All the above signs are easy for me to point out now and I hope that I would more easily identify them, should my son or any of my children exhibit these signs in the future. But as I said, it is easy to have blinders on. Hopefully, this article can help you to be more attuned to some of the red flags of ARFID. |
