anorexia in a teen

If you can take her to your family physician and have a physical evaluation, that would be helpful. Then you will know if she is truly anorexic or not. Then the doctor can advise you both, how best to handle the situation. It could be something else causing her to lose her appetite, some underlying medical condition. Best to get professional help asap. God bless!

Ny help?? Oh ANY help.. All I can say is get her to a doctor and don't whine that your kid's not crazy when he/she advises you to seek the help of a psychologist or psychiatrist - please get her the help she needs and thank goodness she came to you! She's very brave!

Thank you for your word she its very brave at the drs now. She just told me that she has been this way since she was in the eighth grade shes a sofmore now any thoughts and prayers are welcome, thank you again

Dear Pamelaterry, Please go to this wonderful site( you may want to join the forum too and talk to the hundreds of other parents who have walked in your shoes). http://www.FEAST-ED.org/ I cannot recommend it highly enough. As a first book, download or buy "Help your teenager beat an eating disorder" by Drs. Locke and LeGrange, then try "eating with your anorexic" by Laura Collins or " brave girl eating" by Harriet Brown. Arm yourself with knowledge. There are very different approaches to treating anorexia and some of them are very out dated and ineffective, waiting for the patient to " choose" recovery or to suddenly say "oh, I guess I will eat enough after all.". Remember when autism was blamed on "cold mothers?"
It really boils down to the difference between can't and won't eat. Your daughter is a hostage to this strange disease and cannot eat without your support.
I believe very strongly in programs that follow FBT ( this stands for family based treatment, the family supports the anorexic in their eating). Most of the cutting edge programs in the country have adopted this evidence-based treatment. In other words, it has been proven to work, unlike the outdated, "let's talk about why you won't eat" approach.

This is scary, I know, but with support from you, (lots of it and for a long time) your D can recover. The most important thing is that she receive adequate and balanced nutrition so that her brain can begin to heal and get back to being her old self. Cheap and powerful medecine, food!
Let me know if you need someone to talk to. Have hope! No one " chooses" this. It is not her fault, it is not your fault, anorexia is a biologically-based brain disease. This will be a long journey, but the good news is that full and adequate nutrition will do much to bring your daughter back.

I had a similar experience with my youngest daughter when she was 19 - in her case it was bulemia. What a blessing that she was able to tell you as admission is at least half the battle. My girl received 8 weeks of in-patient treatment in a local hospital's eating disorder facility with group and personal counseling follow up. We both began counseling almost immediately after she told me. Best thing we ever did. She is now 40 years old and, after a great deal of prayer and work , mostly on her part, she continues to be healthy. She tells me the impulse grows weaker but the tendency still hangs around. But then we all have some annoying trendency (or several) we must resist as long we are alive. At the time it seemed healing took forever but now it seems a bad bump in her road to adulthood. I wish you both the best . Please remember there is hope and especially - IT IS NO ONE'S FAULT.

I have had a eating disorder (and am still recovering). I guess I think you should look at your situation and not make a huge deal about weight. To tell you the truth, I think weight should not even be apart of treatment for anorexia. Patients will obviously gain weight after they start eating normal amounts and their bodies will naturally go to the place they need to be, therefore weight ranges are kinda stupid. I suggest having her see a good, understanding counseller and maybe a psychiatrist too. If medical stabilization is necessary, then going to the hospital I guess is your only option. But I dont recommend treatment centers, they just take most of your money and then you end up relapsing and return to treatment. It's an endless cycle.