Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Advice re: Anxiety & related physical problems

Hi,

My DD11 has had ongoing problems with anxiety and also stomach issues when under stress. She has been diagnosed with Irritable bowel and possible abdominal migraines. When she is very stressed, she really has physical issues we have to deal with.

Any other parents deal with this successfully? What have been your strategies? We currently homeschool, and she is on some stomach medication that really helps a lot. We went to a very well recommended therapist, but she said that doing that "felt like a criticism." I was thinking about trying yoga... Any other out of the box suggestions? Hormones don't seem to be helping the situation either. TIA

You may wish to focus on helping her address the underlying anxiety, rather than on removing the digestive symptoms of anxiety. When children have unhelpful thinking which may then impact their physical health, some parents find Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to be helpful.

You may have read this elsewhere on the forums: Possibly this scientific explanation may help her: its from the book, Make Your Worrier a Warrior, (2013, Great Potential Press) authored by Daniel Peters Ph.D. who lends expert insight to understanding what a child may be experiencing. For example, pages 44-45 suggest that parents may wish to think of acting out as
Armed with this knowledge, working on helping a child understand nuances of feelings and vocabulary to express their interpretation of what they are experiencing, may prove helpful.

If anxiety is related to perfectionism, procrastination, and/or reluctance to try new things, some of the resources listed in this old post may be of interest.

Maybe journaling? It could be a daily homeschooling writing assignment but maybe if both of you consistently journal you can see patterns of food or stressors or activity that exacerbates the condition. Journaling can be therapeutic.

You can add random pictures and then from the journal and pictures you could produce an edited version as your very own keepsake homeschool yearbook.

Also if a therapist is too judgmental for your child what about just education about anxiety from an impersonal book. Two that I like are the Anxiety and Phobia Workbook by Bourne and The Relaxation Workbook by eshalman and Davis ...these are adult books....there are many kids books too... What to do when you worry too much by heubner

Two of my children have suffered from severe anxiety at different times in their lives, and are prone to anxiety as their natural way of dealing with stress. My ds had abdominal migraines as a young child. The thing that has helped my kids the most was trying to identify what was causing the anxiety, and then either work to eliminate the impact, diminish the cause, or find methods of coping with the issue if it wasn't something that could be eliminated or worked around.

We also tried counseling for both children and it didn't work - not even with highly recommended counselors - both children found talking to a therapist an additional stress. We've found that working through workbooks about anxiety and how to handle stress/worries, and just talking it through worked best for them - but that might not be the best approach for other children.

I have also found that for my ds, it's difficult sometimes to separate physical symptoms based on stress from physical symptoms with an actual physical cause. I mentioned he had abdominal migraines when he was younger (around 6-7 years old). Those migraines disappeared overnight when a large stressor in his life was eliminated. However, there is a strong history of migraines in our family, and now that he's older he occasionally has a headache-migraine, and those sometimes appear to happen when he's stressed, other times appear to happen just out of the blue or related to something he's eaten. So, one thing I'd suggest is a second to the idea of the journaling to look for patterns. There's an *outside* chance one thing you might find is the stomach issues in some cases come are the stressor that triggers anxiety.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Oh...my son had problems with specific near phobic fears...a counselor wanted to set up a reward system for him working through the fear with baby steps...sounds good on paper...but he transferred all of his anxiety to worrying about if he was going to get the reward or not. Big fat fail. What he truly needed was the relaxation techniques, positive self talk, desensitizing without fear of failure or reward. The whole if you do this you can have this reward thing never worked for him...he was more of an after the fact "look at what you have accomplished...let's celebrate....how would you like to do that?" Kind of kid.

Yoga might be worth trying. It's been extremely helpful for a relative who found it after years of crippling anxiety and depression. She now teaches it. That's anecdote of one, but yoga is a good calming technique and also has physical benefits.

Unfortunately teachermom I indeed have a ton of BTDT advice... The good news is that DD10 is now in a very good place so our experience has a happy ending.

DD was diagnosed with "silent reflux" as a baby and was on Prevacid or Prilosec for years. The stomach pains would stop but anytime we tried to take her off meds the pain came back within a matter of weeks. Severe stomach pains started in kindergarten while in an absolutely awful school situation. At the same time she developed major anxiety so we assumed the stomach pains were connected to the anxiety/ terrible school situation. We soon found out that she was profoundly learning disabled and dealing with this was going to be key in addressing the anxiety.

During the fall of first grade at a different school everything was going well - spec Ed interventions for dyslexia/dysgraphia/math disability/speech issues in place, kind nurturing teacher, etc. One day with an abusive substitute teacher brought flashbacks to the previous year (triggering a full fledged post traumatic stress reaction) and her first really bad headache. She was subsequently diagnosed with migraines (at the ripe old age of 6) and her stomach pains from the previous year were retroactively diagnosed as abdominal migraines. Anxiety was here to stay...

Neurologist started her on *very* low dose Elavil but I was still called to pick her up from school almost every day during the second half of 1st grade. School nurse "didn't believe the migraine diagnosis" and refused to follow pediatrician's medication orders. She also seemed to be putting together a child protective services complaint against me because ya know I had to be making up all these issues, not one of the doctors involved could possibly know more than her, etc.

The summer after first grade I searched out the right therapist and got lucky. I found a 2E adult who was also the parent of a 2E child and who specialized in school anxiety. DD was 7 so there was a play therapy focus but because of her intellect there was a significant talk component too. She started by focusing on getting DD to understand the physiological mechanism of her anxiety response and developing a very specific action plan so DD could feel like she was taking control of the response. DD was exited this past spring after 3 years of therapy and her anxiety is solidly under control but she can request an appointment to go talk to psych anytime she feels the need.

DD was eventually moved to an OOD spec Ed placement and the school anxiety is now under full control. She got into an absolutely miserable migraine cycle and the neurologist changed her to Topimax, eventually raising her to a high dose. It got the migraines under control but had *significant* cognitive impact. We have now reduced the dose 70% and I am hoping she will be removed from it completely later this month. The neurologist was clear that getting the migraines under control is harder than keeping them under control. Also at 11 your DD may be having puberty contribute to the migraines. Neurologist explained that because DD started them so young she has a good chance of outgrowing them during puberty. Unfortunately the opposite is true for most people as puberty tends to be when they start.

And because this wasn't enough last year, at the age of 9 1/2, after more than 8 years taking daily meds our pediatrician finally sent DD to a gastroenterologist. Endoscopy showed eosinophilic esophogitis so now taking twice a day pulmicort slurry instead of Prevacid or Prilosec. Accurate diagnosis is key here. And yeah we changed pediatrician's...

DD loves yoga - attends a weekly class plus frequently does it on her own during recess.

Hope some of this helps.

Wow. So many great responses. Thank you all for so much support.

Indigo: I will *definitely* check the book out, it sound like a good resource. Her pediatrician is a very good explainer too, and told her her digestive track has many more nerve endings than her brain...

Cookie--I loved journaling at that age! She has told me she is concerned someone would read her journal. Any advice?

Polar Bear, I suffer from (head) migraines, and my DD has also, I suspected that her issues might be abdominal migraines at times.

Connecting Dots, Yoga is on the list, I just need to carve out the room to do it.

Pemberly, oh gosh, what an ordeal. I am concerned something like this may be going on too... she has a history of asthma, as do I, and I have a history of bile and gastric reflux : ( My DD has also responded very well to PPI and Ulcer medicine. We had a stretch of 10 weeks of waking every morning at 5-6 a.m. extremely nauseated (every day) and vomitting 3-4 times a week during these episodes. The PPI and ulcer medicine has completely changed things for us. We have yet to see a gastroenterologist. My DD is a bit doctor phobic and extremely needle phobic. Ugh. Not sure if this episode is related except that her GI system seems to be the epicenter of her medical and psychological issues... I am so sorry for all you had to go through with your daughter.

My daughter does not experience pain. Just extreme nausea, discomfort, and vomiting. With extreme stress, GI issues on the other end too. And, she worries about getting sick too now. She used to swim competitively, and was a really gifted swimmer, but the stress of meets was too much for her.

How about either getting a journal with a lock on it, or setting her up with a password-protected online site to journal? That way she could control access.

I wrote my journal in tengwar—Elven letters—as a teenager.