Need DD to drink/eat today (post vomit)

PAW (referring to my daughter by her initials), my (almost) 15 year old daughter, overdid it on food yesterday. She's been mostly on Ensure. But yesterday, she had 1 Ensure, and the rest of her calories were food - and not the healthiest, I might add. This is the 3rd time she's vomited since being dx'd with Crohn's - xmas, New Years and today. The last two instances were clearly from eating too much. Not sure what caused the first instance.

Now damage control. She hasn't thrown up since this morning, but she's not really drinking much water and refuses to eat/drink anything else (including Ensure). She's still in pain and the nausea comes in waves. Not sure what to do here except keep trying to get her to drink water and wait it out and hope she's well enough for school tomorrow.

*sigh* Crohn's sucks. Any advice welcome.

I wouldn't try to force your daughter to eat, but I would let your daughter's doctor know what's going on, and see what advice you get from them.

Our experience with this: For a couple of months before and after my daughter's diagnosis last year, we tried to coerce her into eating more, or drinking shakes. We tried bribes, threats ("You'll have to get an NG tube"), and rational arguments. None of them worked, for the simple reason that eating made her feel really really awful. We just didn't understand how awful she felt. In the end, she needed an NG tube (and we felt horrible about the fact that we had used it as a threat, because that made it seem more scary to her, and also made her feel like it was her fault that she needed the tube. Talk about feeling like a terrible parent...) The tube was a life-changer for her. It took away her pain and nausea within days, allowed her intestines to heal, and gave her body the nutrition it needed to rebuild. It also completely changed the atmosphere in our house for the better, since we didn't have to constantly push shakes and food on her.

So that's a long way of saying that you might consider tube feeding for a while. Many kids learn to put in their own tubes at night and take them out each morning, so that they don't have to have them in at school.

I hope your daughter is feeling better soon. And yes, Crohn's does suck. I'm so sorry that your daughter (and your family) has to deal with it.

No great advice sorry. Just hoping she feels a bit better soon. Definitely worth speaking to the GI though

Can you call her gi for zofran to help with the nausea ?
Might want to skip food/shakes today and focus on ginger ale /Gatorade/pedialyte /Popsicles /jello

Ds get very nauseous from GP
Small as in 2 tbsp of a sugary liquid at a time every twenty minutes is what we tend to do and work up to more liquids
But definitely let your Gi know especially if she is refusing fluids

I'm so sorry about what happened with your daughter, PDX. That sucks. I think you are right about not forcing food - thanks for the advice. Just to distinguish though, she's been doing pretty good with drinking mostly Ensure and only eating a little bit of food. And normally she's pretty good about eating/drinking. But today (and she just threw up again - so that's twice today) she doesn't want to eat. I'll let it go for now.

But I really think she needs to drink water and she's not, really. Her lips are so dry. I think the 6-MP really dehydrates her too.

my little penguin said:

Can you call her gi for zofran to help with the nausea ?
Might want to skip food/shakes today and focus on ginger ale /Gatorade/pedialyte /Popsicles /jello

Ds get very nauseous from GP
Small as in 2 tbsp of a sugary liquid at a time every twenty minutes is what we tend to do and work up to more liquids
But definitely let your Gi know especially if she is refusing fluids

Click to expand...

I did email the doctor's nurse about 4-5 hours ago. I didn't say anything about refusing to drink though - because I didn't realize she wasn't really drinking that early (I'm at work and have been monitoring her by text/phone calls - which sucks. I'm going home soon). I was thinking about Zofran. I'll ask the doctor if she's still bad tomorrow. Crossing fingers. Been trying to push the liquids/jello, etc. but she's not going for it...

I'd also say Zofran. It might really help. We use it when my daughter is especially nauseous.

We also did tube feeding. My daughter just could not drink enough to keep her weight up. Eventually her GI insisted she needed a tube. My daughter was very against it at first but once she got used to it, thought it was much better than drinking shakes! It took her about 2 days to get used to the tube and a week or two to get good at inserting it. She'd insert it at night and remove it in the morning so no one at school had to know.

I'd just try to push fluids today. Tell her to sip very slowly on shakes or water or pedialyte. That way she can stop easily before she gets too nauseous.

If she keeps refusing to drink even water I'd call the GI on call.

cassimw said:

Just to distinguish though, she's been doing pretty good with drinking mostly Ensure and only eating a little bit of food. And normally she's pretty good about eating/drinking. But today (and she just threw up again - so that's twice today) she doesn't want to eat. I'll let it go for now.

But I really think she needs to drink water and she's not, really. Her lips are so dry. I think the 6-MP really dehydrates her too.

Click to expand...

OK, then I agree with MLP and Maya. Try zofran, keep encouraging her to try small sips of liquids, and let your GI know if she can't even drink or keep down liquids. (If you can't get through to your GI, your pediatrician's office would almost certainly call in a zofran scrip for you.)

Also dehydration will cause nausea so sometimes the kids get stuck in a vicious circle. Anything she could do to take sips of Gatorade, pedialyte etc should help.

I would definitely call the GI's office once you are home and can assess the situation.

How is she doing today? I hope the nausea has passed.

pdx said:

How is she doing today? I hope the nausea has passed.

Click to expand...

Thanks pdx -- she went to school yesterday, although it was a rough day. She was pretty run down, weak and tired, but she made it. She hates missing school - all the catch up work...

Today she's having a little pain, but doing better otherwise.

It seems that when she overdoes it with food, she vomits. I guess we'll just have to find the right balance. Doctor was glad I checked in but not much to be done for now. She offered to call in Zofran script in case this comes up again, and I agreed -- so it will be good to have that on-hand in the future.

Going to my first local CCFA parent support group tomorrow. I am sort of oddly excited...

pdx said:

How is she doing today? I hope the nausea has passed.

Click to expand...

Thanks pdx -- she went to school yesterday, although it was a rough day. She was pretty run down, weak and tired, but she made it. She hates missing school - all the catch up work...

Today she's having a little pain, but doing better otherwise.

It seems that when she overdoes it with food, she vomits. I guess we'll just have to find the right balance. Doctor was glad I checked in but not much to be done for now. She offered to call in Zofran script in case this comes up again, and I agreed -- so it will be good to have that on-hand in the future.

Going to my first local CCFA parent support group tomorrow. I am sort of oddly excited...

pdx said:

How is she doing today? I hope the nausea has passed.

Click to expand...

Thanks pdx -- she went to school yesterday, although it was a rough day. She was pretty run down, weak and tired, but she made it. She hates missing school - all the catch up work...

Today she's having a little pain, but doing better otherwise.

It seems that when she overdoes it with food, she vomits. I guess we'll just have to find the right balance. Doctor was glad I checked in but not much to be done for now. She offered to call in Zofran script in case this comes up again, and I agreed -- so it will be good to have that on-hand in the future.

Going to my first local CCFA parent support group tomorrow. I am sort of oddly excited...