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Anxiety Community
This patient support community is for discussions relating to generalized anxiety, anxiety and eating, anxiety and sleeping, mood swings, and phobias.
Question about my 9 yr old
by carrie0504, Apr 24, 2007 12:00AM
My son (9 yrs old) insists that food becomes "stuck" or goes down slowly in his esophagus. He becomes very, very distressed when this happens. He says he feels as though he can't breath and is going to choke. This has become so problematic that he no longer will eat solid foods at all, his weight has dropped and he has panic attacks when pushed to eat or if the 'choking' sensation comes to him while away from my husband and I. (ie...at school) In all other areas of his life he is a normal 9 yr old boy. He has friends....stays over night with friends...has a good sense of humor and gets great grades at school. The GI doctors seemed to have written him off as having anxiety disorder and that results in the sensation in his throat. My question is...can anxiety center on just eating? Has anxiety caused his choking phobia or is there something that the doctors have missed causing him this much anxiety?
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My father in law has this problem. His throat seizes up around a piece of food, OFTEN, when he is stressed or eating with a group in a restaurant, or with a large family gathering.
I think you need to allow him to eat liquid food if he wants when he is in this situation, (milkshakes, ENSURE, soups, etc.) until he can get through this.
This is so sad that your son's doctors have written him off, where my father in law was totally believed when he said the exact same thing, with the exact same symptoms.
Best wishes. It must be a horribly panicky feeling to have food stuck in your throat.
She still definitely has issues, but I feel better working through them with her as I'm well-versed in anxiety/panic/depression myself unless, of course, it get would get completely out of control.
It may be something bothering your son that you don't think is so important but to him it is the root of this anxiety (which sounds like what he has to me). And, as I said, he may not even realize it until someone else realizes it. I hope this makes sense. I sat down one night for four hours with my daughter just picking her brain and chatting and the lightbulb went off - thank God! But, alas, there are subissues. Parenting is never-ending, but I woulnd't trade it for anything! Keep him precious and let him know that you're totally into what he is doing and that you don't miss a "trick."
Good luck........
Maybe it is all anxiety. God...if only kids came with instructions. Thanks for all the insight.
carrie
If everything is physically fine you need to get your child into therapy. It definitely can be an anxiety disorder and you want to get it under control before it spirals out of control and "latches on" to other things. best to you.
carrie