Not eating... | ADHD Information
My son is on adderall (20 mg) and eating has become such a battle - he would go all day without eating if we let him. The doctor says we just need to be easy on him but he is not eating at all - its been months of this now. Anyone have similar situation? What did you do?
Difficult!!
I have been having the same issues. I called the doc last week ( even went there) and he prescribed something to stimulate appetite. I don't know if it is sold where you are at. It is called Maxibol 1mg; it stimulates appetite and cover deficiencies of vit B12. I have heard that a vit B complex is good to stimulate appetite, maybe you can call your doc and ask. My son has been about four days using this med and I noticed that yesterday he was willing to eat a little more.
I hope things get better for you because it is extremeily disturbing when our kids don't eat.
Good luck!!
Ok, I am sure that you have already heard all of these techniques, but I will list them just in case...try to have him eat a high calorie breakfast BEFORE you give his meds. My son loves scrambled eggs, mixed with melted cheddar cheese and bacon bits, wrapped in a tortilla...that is upwards of 400 calories if you shop around for the highest calorie tortilla...it really varies by brand.
think outside the box for breakfast foods...my son has had corn dogs, leftover meatloaf, grilled cheese sandwiches, leftover spaghetti, pizza....if it is going to put some calories into him, and not make your life too hard, I say who cares if it is "normal"....if he is hungry for it, he is more likely to eat more of it!
If your son likes soup, add a teaspoon or so of olive oil to it before serving...if he doesn't see you do it, he will never know and it will add flavor and calories!
add Carnation Instant Breakfast made with whole milk and perhaps even some cream added for a calorie boost and it is packed with vitamins as well. You can try to add protein powder as well for a calorie boost, but my son did not like the tasted and soon refused to drink them with the powder added.
You may have to concede lunch as a "no go", but if he will still drink, send a high calorie drink and see if he will at least finish that..those Nesquick milkshake bottles (premixed in the dairy section, 13.5 oz.) have 360 calories if you drink the whole bottle! And they come in several flavors as well. Some of the juice bottles/boxes have a lot of calories as well, or you could send another Instant breakfast, I believe that they come premade, however, that would most likely be less calories and be made with lowfat milk...you could make your own and send it in a rubbermaid sipper...Move dinner back to a later hour, my son ate better when we had dinner at 7:30 as opposed to 6:00.If all of this fails after an honest try, ask your doctor about adding Periactin (Cyproheptadine) to your son's meds. This is an antihistamine that has the happy side effect of boosting the appetite and weight gain. Google this med and research it...I did and found a site sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics, that recommended adding this to counteract the anorexic affect of the stimulant meds.
My son has been on this med since early November, and he has gained back the 4-5 pounds that he had previously lost, and has a normal appetite now, where before he was just like your son. Each meal was as struggle, and I felt like we were playing "Let's Make a Deal" with all of the bartering going on...."Is this enough Mom?" "Can I get down now?"
Send me a Private message (PM) if you have questions. I really truly know just how you feel!
chasesmom7939083.7112152778
Actually, the idea of negociating for junk food is more evident after he started a med to stimulate appetite a short time ago. The thing is that he has been having very bad appetite periods (just about two weeks ago there was a terrible appetite event), and no so bad appetite periods with this medication Strattera. He has even lost weight which I suppose will now regain (Hopefully!!). I even worry since he showed high cholesterol in his last blood test ,at such a young age, and his doc told me to restrain him COMPLETELY from junk food (high cholesterol runs in my family). But this is definitely such a difficult job, how do you offer healthy food all the time to a kid who just won't eat food. Often, I have to go for the nuggets and fries option; all I do is bake them instead of frying. He always complains that they don't taste as in McDonald's. I have kind of concluded that his appetite issue has a lot to do with routine. This Christmas break he lost appetite again; so I hope by next week he will go back to his more or less good eating plan.
I just want to comment that yesterday I received a call from my mother in law telling me that she was doing her own research about adhd so she could help me. She told me that she found out that making dietary changes specifically with cow milk, wheat, and colorants it was possible to get improvement without the need of a med. Of course this isn't new to me, but this is a joke for me. Obviously I accepted her advice and in any way offended her. But this idea, although it might work for some, is completely out of the question for my son. How could I stop him from eating bread, milk (ok, maybe here I can substitute for soy milk), cheese, pasta, and many others that contain such elements. Even with those, my son has trouble.
Chasesmom70, I am glad that your son ate the chicken Alfredo. My problem now is not that my ds can do it, but that he will do it after a yelling event and with me at his side supervising and giving it to him just like a baby.
Does any one else worry that all this emphasis on food and bargaining to get them to eat and whatnot is going to end up giving our kids food issues? I know that he needs to eat- if he loses then the doctor will be reluctant to keep him on this dosage- but I hate to put pressure on him about it, or nag him about it. My mom and sister ar both anorexic, and I vividly remember the mealtime battles in our house when we were kids (you eat it or else. . .). I also know for a fact that my mother was force fed as a child (grandfather holding her down while my grandmother pushed food in her mouth). I guess because I know there is a gentic link with eating disorders I worry about it more.
So how do we get them to eat, while at the same time instilling a healthy attitude about it? Is there a way to ensure that a trauma or negative event in their life won't trigger a disorder regarding food? I've always tried to have a very laid back attitude about it with my kids. Either, eat or don't, I don't care, but no treats unless they've eaten something healthy, and I limit the amount of junk food I bring into the house so I won't have to tell them no as often. But actually trying to get my child to eat when he's not hungry feels wrong, even though I know it's the meds that are making him not hungry.
And then, to compound the problem, my 6 yr. old daughter is on the pudgy side, not overweight, but definetely not in need of high cal/full fat food.
Ok, sorry, I feel like I'm going in circles here. I should probably try to find a shrink to ask these questions. If anyone has any insight, I appreciate it.
But when Chase was at his worst with the appetite suppression of the meds, he couldn't even been tempted by Oreos! I could offer ice cream, chips, cookies, cake...nothing could do the trick...he just didn't eat..that is how I knew he needed something to stimulate his appetite.
If he had been "hungry" only for junk food....he would have not been offered it til after meals as well.
He ate his chicken alfredo, some broccoli, and then asked me if he could have a fruit roll up. Later I made popcorn and he had some of that as well. Before the periactin, he would have bargained to get out of supper and not been interested in anything afterwards...
chasesmom7939087.8437037037Did any of you in your wildest dreams think you would be happy to let your son/daughter eat Oreos BEFORE dinner.....willingly???? I just did that...I have spent 4 hours getting Chase's new prescription filled...our local pharmacy did not have the correct mg, so I had to go to Walmart, 20 miles away. They had it, but it took some time for them to get the billing info from Novartis, then only the pharmacist could fill it and I waited for over half an hour AFTER I shopped a bit to kill time!! So dinner is gonna be late....I got home about 15 minutes ago and Chase was eating Oreos...but by the time the chicken alfredo gets done he will be hungry again...I was just happy that he wanted a snack... try to have him eat a high calorie breakfast BEFORE you give his meds. My son loves scrambled eggs, mixed with melted cheddar cheese and bacon bits, wrapped in a tortilla...that is upwards of 400 calories if you shop around for the highest calorie tortilla...it really varies by brand.
think outside the box for breakfast foods...my son has had corn dogs, leftover meatloaf, grilled cheese sandwiches, leftover spaghetti, pizza....if it is going to put some calories into him, and not make your life too hard, I say who cares if it is "normal"....if he is hungry for it, he is more likely to eat more of it!
If your son likes soup, add a teaspoon or so of olive oil to it before serving...if he doesn't see you do it, he will never know and it will add flavor and calories!
add Carnation Instant Breakfast made with whole milk and perhaps even some cream added for a calorie boost and it is packed with vitamins as well. You can try to add protein powder as well for a calorie boost, but my son did not like the tasted and soon refused to drink them with the powder added.
You may have to concede lunch as a "no go", but if he will still drink, send a high calorie drink and see if he will at least finish that..those Nesquick milkshake bottles (premixed in the dairy section, 13.5 oz.) have 360 calories if you drink the whole bottle! And they come in several flavors as well. Some of the juice bottles/boxes have a lot of calories as well, or you could send another Instant breakfast, I believe that they come premade, however, that would most likely be less calories and be made with lowfat milk...you could make your own and send it in a rubbermaid sipper... Move dinner back to a later hour, my son ate better when we had dinner at 7:30 as opposed to 6:00.
All excellent suggestions! I also allow my son to eat ice cream whenever he likes, snacks whenever he wants them, and a fourth meal while he is sitting in bed, listening to one of us read him a story. That fourth meal is usually his biggest meal, after breakfast. So far he's gained back his initial weight loss of 4 pounds.
I hide all snacks as Oreo cookies so my ds can't reach them. I am usually concerned that my son doesn't want to eat food, but he loves to eat snacks as those Oreos. What I usually do is let him eat them just if he finishes his food. He is usually upset at the table and never wants to finish but when I remind him about the Oreos he just does his job. In your case it was ok, the poor kid was waiting too long for dinner.
I hate this kind of negotiation with him, even more knowing that my ds cholesterol was high in his last test, and sugar makes him even more hyper, but what can I do when he refuses to eat all the time. Additionally, I am usually a healthy eater. This kind of stuff is usually brought home by my dh.
I'm right there with you on this one. Our 7 yr son is on 10mg of Adderall XR and will not eat during the day. His typical routine is to drink a breakfast drink in the morning before he gets his meds and he also eats dry cereal. Then he'll have a cheese stick for lunch. About 7pm he starts to get hungry, as the med wears off, and has any kind of dinner which usually consists of either one of these: corn, plain pasta, part of a hot dog, cheeze sticks, yogurt, or his favorite smoothie. (Smoothies work great because we hide "healthy stuff" in it.)
We don't like him to eat junk food but allow it simply because we want him to eat something. We also bribe him with junk food (he cannot get junk without first eating something healthy.)
When he was little he would throw up when we tried to get him to eat healthy, but that doesn't happen anymore.Dad in Akron39085.7246180556
I tried Chasesmom's idea of asking for Periactin and the doc said no. SHe said if she needs an appetite stimulant, she should first try another med. If we've gone through all the meds, and she still isn't eating then we will revisit that. 
We haven't tried Daytrana yet. (I'm worried about that financially. Chasesmom, I got your pm re: getting help from them but we tend to fall right in the in-between on those types of things...we make too much to qualify, but too little to actually pay for it, save resorting to using a credit card or forfeiting paying other bills, and if I didn't have this one luxury of the Internet to network with you all I'd go crazy!) Grace is currently on 72mg Concerta.
jaderock, I totally agree with you about worrying about their developing bad eating habits. I have asked the doc about that several times and she knows I'm concerned but she said that at this point, my dd's ADHD is so severe that not treating it is worse than worrying about her eating habits. Last week I sent her to school w/o meds, and her teacher showed me examples of her work on and off the medication and told me about her negative behavior during the day and I knew for once and for all that not medicating her was NOT an option.
ANyway back to the topic on hand, I am really having a problem with her eating. It's so bad. At this point I let her eat pretty much anything, which makes me feel like such a bad mom, but she's getting so thin, she literally looks like a concentration camp victim, like the pictures you see in books. Her skin over her face is taut, and all her bones jut out and her limbs are so thin. I keep asking myself, what am I doing to my baby? She is so picky and so stubborn, she won't even eat the things she ate before, Mac and cheese, hot dogs, yogurt. I make her the whole milk, add the chocolate and cream and Carnation mix, and she won't drink it after a sip or two. Whatever I try to feed her, (this morning it was pancakes with syrup) I yell, I plead, I threaten. She refuses ("I can't! I can't!"), she cries, and eventually spits out what was in her mouth into the toilet. One thing she does like lately is tortilla chips and sour cream. Can you imagine the cholesterol and sodium in that? And that's all she will eat, and then only at night when the meds start to wear off.
ot, Does anyone know of a thread that talks about immaturity in ADHD kids? I remember reading it was like they are actually at a maturity level 1/3 less their age?
Has anyone read any "encouraging" books about ADHD lately, for example, "The Gift Of ADHD?"
dolphinjen,
The 30% comment comes from Dr. Russell Barkley.
http://www.schwablearning.org/articles.aspx?r=54
We've been through this, also. No amount of nagging will get your child to eat. Just think about when you feel stuffed, would someone yelling at you make you eat? Probably not! We would let her have milkshakes, etc. My concern was that her sister was going to pay the price, e.g. gaining weight that she doesn't need. Anyway, dd's appetite got back to normal when she started Tenex. No more food battles.Jaderock-- I have worried the same things as you, though there is no eating disorder history in my family, I worry that the emphasis on eaing could very well cause one. I tread a fine line between casually mentioning that maybe he would like a snack, and insisting he has to eat at least something.
dolphinjen - Has your daughter tried ritalin LA yet? Chase has a much better appetite on that med than he did on the concerta, though we have added guanfacine, and that is said to help with appetite as well. They were added w/in a 2 week time period, so I am unsure if it is the combo or the med change that did it. Do you give med breaks on the weekends/school holidays? That also helped when Chase was at his worst (before the periactin). On the weekend, he would eat up a storm, and that made me feel a little better about the non eating on the weekdays. If you can stand her unmedicated, try to give a med break on the weekends and see if that does some good.
When my hubby was on concerta, he said that at times the mere thought of food made him feel ill. Chase would say that the smell/sight of the school lunch (something he disliked to eat and the reason that I packed a lunch in the first place) would turn off his appetite in a second, so he wouldn't eat his packed lunch.
I have a recipe for a taco dip with cream cheese and cottage cheese and taco seasoning that is yummy with trotilla chips if you would like to try it.....PM me...
And jaderock...I too have a 'chubby' sibling to contend with....my 13 year old son was teetering on the cliff ready to fall toward fatness...and here I was bringing in all of these high cal things to tempt Chase. I had a long talk with Jake as to why these things were here, and he worried about Chase being skinny too, and told him that he had to make good food choices for him, just as we had to make different 'good food' choices for Chase.
We did okay, jake has grown 5-6 inches in the last 6 months w/o putting on any weight, and Chase has gained 3 pounds and grown 1/4 inch in the last month..
But it is a balancing act. I tried whenever I could to have a low calorie version of whatever I was tempting Chase with to offer to Jake, but it was not always possible.
Thanks everyone. You support is always tremendously helpful!
I guess I will have to wait and see if I have the sibling problem to deal with. My little guy is 2, and it's not yet possible to know if he's got ADHD. He already picks at his skin and chews his sleeves, this isn't normal is it?
Anyway I have a lot of empathy for those of you who have the two types of appetites to deal with. I never thought of having that to contend with.
Mariaven -
My ds has very high cholesterol - 335 - and has had since age 2. We had to start on a low fat diet at that point. Once we added Concerta at age 7, the eating battle was on. He sees a nutritionist at Childrens Hospital and they insist that he has to keep up the low fat diet so as not to do any damage to his heart.
One snack that seems to help is apples with peanut butter (low fat) and a glass of milk. Actually, peanut butter is the one food I can almost always get him to eat - pb sandwich, pb and apple, pb and banana, and I make my own banana bread, loaded with apple sauce and wheat flour and spread peanut butter on it.
Chasesmom79- Thanks for the tips- We just moved to higher dose of Focalin and he stopped eating entirely for a few days.
However, I've just discovered that he loves Carnation Instant Breakfast, and I dumped some cream in there for good measure, even though it totally went against my health nut instincts. I also stopped limiting the number of times a week he buys lunch at school- I still don't understand how they can get away with serving fried cheese sticks as an entree, but at least he eats them. believe me I have been there! It is so funny when I am
in the grocery aisle, I am looking at all the brands of canned fruit,
etc. for the one with the MOST calories! Because of course, my skinny
guy thinks that canned pears are the greatest thing in the world! Why
can't he be in love with something high calorie?!You gotta figure...if he is only eating one meal a day, make it a biggie! And I could buy stock in Carnation Instant Breakfast, and of course, cream....whole milk.....chocolate syrup....