Where to begin

[christina2]

I am the mother of an 11 year old who once got food poisoning and now does not eat due to fear of vomitting. She is not afraid of others vomitting as I was recently sick. Only of herself vomitting. She is also a gymnast and takes a heartburn pill before practice because she gets heartburn which sends her into a panic thinking she will get sick. She is becoming very skinny and hardly eats anything at all. Since she is a gymnast, eventually this not eating will become a problem as she will no longer have enough energy to keep up. Where do I begin with all of this? I just stumbled upon this group, thankfully. Any help would be truly appreciated.

[titchychick]

Hey there, I take it you yourself are not an emet ?
Start off by reassuring your daughter that there are safe foods, simple plain food that aren't high risk and don't lead to excessive indigestion. This book called 'Living with emetophobia: coping with the extreme fear of vomiting' sums up the whole eating problems that emet's face quite well maybe if you haven't got it already you should buy it.
If not, take her to your doctors and they'll be able to refer her to psychologist who may be able to help.
It would be awful for her to give up such a great sport
Hope this helps a bit x

[Elski]

Well done for being so proactive and getting on the case with this straight away - it's definitely best to try and nip it in the bud early and a lot more likely to be successful. Poor you, you must be so concerned.

Have you sat down with her and had a good old mother/daughter heart-to-heart? Maybe it will help if you do that. Gently tell her you're concerned and that you want to help/support her in overcoming her fear and discuss what options there might be.

As suggested by titchy, I think a doctor/psychologist referral is definitely worth considering too but try to make sure it's something you approach together so she feels like you're on her side, not 'interfering'.

Good luck!

[Tersh]

This happened to my sister when she was 8 and eventually, we needed to get her counselling. And on meds. Someone who starts avoiding certain things (like food) because of a phobia (like vomiting) has obsessive compulsive tendencies and while it *might* get better on it's own, you should consider treatment. Our family physician started my sister on a placebo that he said would make her not vomit. that's a good first step to maybe talk to your family physician about. Good luck!

[mj0722]

I am happy that you are being proactive about things. I myself believe I developed this phobia from a very young age, but was too embarrassed to talk about it. I always had stomach aches, feared going to school, and feared eating in general. I am now 25 and still suffer from this. I think by helping your daughter now, you will prevent her from being where I am at today, still scared of losing control and v* (especially in public), and now worried that this phobia will cost me my career.

[TiredofFear]

Good for you for trying to help your daughter with this! I have had this fear since I was 7 years old due to a traumatic experience of my dad getting sick. One plus is that your daughter is not frightened of other people getting sick. I am as terrified of that almost as I am of vomiting myself.

I was diagnosed with IBS when I was 9 years old, and that didn't help things. Between the IBS and my fear of vomiting, I was severely underweight by my freshman year of high school. I was only 67 pounds and had little energy. I began seeing a gastroenterologist who said the bottom line was I needed to gain weight, and I had anxiety and depression. I began seeing a nutritionist, psychologist, and psychiatrist. I started gaining weight, and I also started taking medicine for the anxiety and depression. At some point, I decided to stop gaining weight after gaining 20 pounds. I never got over my fear. The medicine never helped with that.

When it came time for me to start college, I got a stomach virus and was ultimately too weak from my low weight to go back. I had months of weakness until I got another stomach virus. I went in the hospital. It was the children's hospital in the area. They referred me to a doctor and nutritionist. I began seeing them and gained a little weight. They diagnosed me with an eating disorder. I also began seeing their psychologist and psychiatrist. The problem was that the doctor refused to believe my difficulty in gaining weight was due to my fear of vomiting. She thought it was an eating disorder. I was put in the hospital several times to gain weight due to problems with my heart and blood pressure, but they didn't understand. They tried to treat me for anorexia when I didn't have it. The hospital's program involved eating (sometimes a large amount) food within 30 minutes and not going to the bathroom for an hour after that. It was miserable, and I checked out of the hospital both times against medical advice.

I still have IBS, frequent nausea, emetophobia, and am trying to gain weight.

So, make sure you find a doctor who is understanding of her emetophobia (that doesn't misdiagnose her with anorexia). Make sure you find a good therapist who is understanding of your daughter's fear and tries various methods of treating it. I haven't been able to find a therapist that treats emetophobia yet. If need be, see a nutritionist who can help with a meal plan of things your daughter will eat.

Nipping it in the bud early could literally save her a lot of difficulty.