Parents share their stories
Mum of an 8 year old
Anxiety, OCD, ADHD, disordered eating, Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), sleep issues, school refusal
“ Our first struggles came with bedtimes, it was a real battle to get him to bed. Little did we know that OCD and ADHD were just round the corner ”
“ My child wasn’t a great eater, but he became an even more fussy eater, it was really hard work. He started to not be able to eat breakfast and wouldn’t touch school food. He started to show anxiety, which got worse and worse. He started to get really upset about going to school. Meltdowns became a regular occurrence. Then the sensory processing became a big issue, he became really irritable at times - smells stressed him out and he hated the sound of me eating. He hated sock seams, wouldn’t get dressed, or put shoes on. He hated the smell of the school dining room. Then the OCD kicked in…. raw skin from repeated hand washing. He became distressed and had intrusive thoughts about contamination, eating even less, losing weight, not wanting to see friends. Wanting to cut his hands off because of the ‘contamination’ thoughts. Violent outbursts and meltdowns became a regular fixture.
We asked for a CAMHS referral and waited, struggling on while things got worse and worse. We tried checking for PANS/PANDAS but came up with nothing with the GP, who had never heard of it. In the meantime a friend recommended a nutritional therapist. While we waited, months & months, for CAMHS or any professional help, we tried this out. We knew his eating was bad and we thought ‘why not?’ We felt so helpless, it was something we could do. After a thorough medical history, the nutritionist recommended some testing (stool, urine and hair) which pointed towards some nutrient deficiencies, gut parasites and inflammation that she could help with a load of drops and probiotics; Omega 3, zinc, magnesium, vitamin D, B12 and more. Within weeks his mood swings and meltdowns got less and less and the sensory processing eased. His appetite slowly improved and we managed to get some private CBT to help him understand and banish the OCD thoughts. Within a few months we had our son back - anxiety levels were better than they’d ever been before, appetite too, raring to see friends and get to school each day.
If we hadn’t tried nutrition support, I think he would still be in a very difficult place right now, struggling with OCD, anxiety, school refusal and the other debilitating symptoms that took over our lives.”
“ Whatever you are doing, keep doing it ”
Prof Gareth Morgan Paediatric Immunology
Mum of a 10 year old
Severe anxiety, panic attacks, OCD, food phobia, withdrawal
“ He was a shadow of the bright bubbly boy he had once been ”
“ When my son was 10, out of the blue, he was struck down with a tummy bug that saw him hospitalised twice. The hospital ran tests for food poisoning bugs and bacteria, but all were negative, so it was put down to a virus that then cleared up. He was ill and off school for nearly a whole term. When the initial stomach and dehydration issues cleared up, he was left with persistent headaches and periodic diarrhoea. He was also a different child. He had become insular, food phobic (for fear of the unknown virus returning) very anxious and low, and started to display OCD behaviour. He was a shadow of the bright bubbly boy he had once been. It was devastating. We went to Doctors and therapists, all of whom concluded that the trauma of being ill had left him with anxiety and panic attacks, but that he was otherwise totally healthy.
On my knees with despair, a friend told me about someone she knew, who had a child who had experienced similar things, but who had had his life transformed by a functional medicine nutritionist. I took the number, called her PA, and sobbed down the phone, begging for an appointment.
After our consultation, she ran a comprehensive stool test and when the results came back, she was confident; she had found the root of the problem. My son had a parasite she was certain was the cause of his problems, alongside Strep and low levels of certain minerals which would be making things worse. She explained that 90% of our Seratonin is produced in the gut and that if that production is stripped out by a bad stomach illness, it doesn’t restart and needs to be rebuilt. We were given a range of vitamins and supplements to boost him up, and she helped me with how to bring some new food into his diet using smoothies and pasta sauce to hide them in initially, as well as giving him a course of treatment to remove the parasite and Strep.
I can only describe what happened next as like a miracle. Within a week of the start of the vitamins and supplements, my son’s mood started to lift and bit by bit we saw the return of our boy. His headaches never came back, his stools became normal and regular and gradually his eating improved. The colour returned to his cheeks and his enthusiasm for life returned. In those months I realised the incredible part that the gut plays not just in our overall health, but even more, in our mental health. By sorting out his gut, my son stopped having panic attacks, his anxiety retreated and he is now living a happy and healthy life, something that seemed impossibility in those dark months. ”