Food Aversion Therapy

[LostSurprise]

Anyone done food therapy? I'm researching this right now. I have Just Take a Bite (book) and am researching the SOS (sequential oral sensory) approach.

 

How do you deal with this? Any resources I should check out?

[Jennifer-72]

Only have a second, as i need to head out soon. Our OT did SOS with our son. It was extremely effective for ds! He went from eating about 10-15 different foods to trying most foods I put in front of him. This happened over the course of about two months for ds. Are you trying to do this on your own or thru a therapist? I am happy to dig around for my notes the OT gave us and give you the general way our OT went about it if that helps.

[Paige]

Feeding therapy was life changing for us. I can't overstate how much better everything and every day is because the girls will eat food. I don't have much time to type everything but if you search feeding therapy I'm sure you will find some old posts of mine giving more details. I'm not familiar with the Just a Bite book. We went to a feeding clinic that gave us a lot of things to practice at home. It was a combination of food chaining (there's a book with the same name that we used) and desensitization. It took us about 18months to get to the point where we realized that, "Wow, they are mostly normal now!" It wasn't easy and I had a lot of people telling me I was wasting food and that it wasn't kind to put them through it. It was worth it. They are much happier children now that they aren't sad, stressed, and hungry all day and everywhere we go. I do not believe that they would have grown out of it on their own without intervention. They were getting progressively worse.

[LostSurprise]

I'm not sure how we'll do it.

 

My son has always been a severely picky kid. I mean the kind who only eats 5-9 foods at a time. Sometimes he would get tired of them and eliminate something. Occasionally he would pick out something new (but usually similar).

 

For the last 3 years he's been on a special diet related to his medical condition. He's gone from 5-9 things (breads, crackers, chicken nuggets) to having nothing that he liked left. It took a few months just to find something he would eat every day (and every meal).

 

At this point he's degraded to 1-3 foods/meals. He tolerates this but hates everything else. He won't feed himself. He barely chews. I have to spoon it in, remind him to chew, remind him to swallow, squirt basic water in. He's 7. I'm tired. It takes constant work all day just to keep him at a survival basis of 1-2 meals a day and necessary water.

 

We can't change the diet. His condition is dire without it. The diet also makes it hard for him to feel hunger signals (very low carb).

 

I would welcome any information you had. I'm still in early research mode. I'm not sure SOS or chaining will be helpful for him or not, but I definitely have to take some action now.

[Finnella]

The book I'm familiar with is Food Chaining. We ended up going a different direction with a (mostly) Paleo diet. My DS and I have strong addictions to sugar. I recommend checking the book out. It seems to be a good plan to slowly expand your child's list of foods he'll eat. And the author isn't under the delusion that you can starve your kid into trying new foods. Around 5% of kids would rather starve than try something new.

[fourcatmom]

I don't know about that specific kind of therapy but when we went to a feeding specialist it was the best thing we could have done. We also did OT through a special education preschool and that was life changing.

 

The feeding eval told us to pursue medical and that was when they found out she had ulcers. She had a huge gag reflex and vomited all the time. Luckily for us she vomited during the feeding evaluation and it really pushed us in the right direction.

 

The OT was heaven sent. They started working with her in Sept. She would drink but really not eat. She was overly sensative to smells. That child could smell swiss cheese a mile away! They started getting into her mouth and working with her and by November at Thanksgiving that month, she ate mashed potatoes for the first time! That was huge for her. From there we saw a lot of improvements.

 

So, again not specifically what you asked but in regards to feeding and OT - those were the best decisions for her that we ever made. And, listening to the specialist and digging deeper with the medical. I would have never guessed that at 3 years old she would have had two stomach ulcers. :confused:

 

Good Luck

[Paige]

Since your DS is on a restricted diet, I think the desensitization would work best. Have you checked around for a feeding clinic in your area? My DDs met with a team that consisted of a gastroenterologist, physical therapist, SLP, dietitian, psychiatrist, and maybe a couple more people all in one day. They were evaluating them with the focus being on why they weren't eating and how to help them eat for social acceptance as well as nutrition. It was so nice to be able to see all of them at one time instead of driving around the county on different days. After the consultations, they all had a meeting and we worked on plans and goals together. We saw them in Atlanta but there may be others in different parts of the country.

[LostSurprise]

I think there's a clinic like that in the state capitol (@2hrs away).

 

Who would I go to for a referral? Pediatrician? Neurologist? Pediatric psychologist?

[Paige]

I think there's a clinic like that in the state capitol (@2hrs away).

 

Who would I go to for a referral? Pediatrician? Neurologist? Pediatric psychologist?

 

My pediatrician referred us.