Since late January Andrew has missed seven full days of school and that isn’t counting the other eight days that I’ve picked him up – anywhere from 8:20 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. He had headaches, he was pale, fatigued, loss of appetite…just to name a few complaints.
I took him to his pediatrician who did a battery of blood work – only to find that he had mono at some point (not then or now) but everything else was normal.
His complaints continued. Every day – one, two or three trips to the nurse and a call to me.
I took him to the neurologist. She had an MRI & EEG done under sedation. The results showed that he had some abnormalities but nothing that would cause headaches and nothing that required treatment.
His complaints continued. He lost about four pounds. I decided to take him to his ENT who removed his adenoids just to make sure there weren’t any sinus issues. Clean bill of health.
Our collective conclusion – anxiety induced headaches, fatigue and weight loss. Seven years old and anxiety is doing this to him.
The good news in all of this is that since Friday he seems a “tad” better. Although he bit himself Sunday morning while I was getting ready for church and I didn’t see it until we got there. It was bad. Very bad. The picture below shows if after 24 hours – the one above it is from two weeks ago. At least the redness has gone down from the Sunday bite. It terrifies me that he does this…mainly for the reason that he hurts himself but also if some non-educated person takes a look at him – they could think that we are hurting him. Our pediatricians assure us that a doctor can tell that they are child bites – but still it scares the crap out of me. The bruise there on his side — “Samantha tripped me in gym – accidently — I still got to tag Alyssa though so it was okay.” That bruise is bad too.
He is a very smart, very articulate, top of his class and beyond in academics – but his anxiety and anger really screw him up.
The new rules now are that if he bites himself – no wii. He lost the wii for all of Sunday. If he bites himself again – he loses it for a week….every time he hits or bites himself – more time will be added.
How can this face have so many woes?
As a retired teacher, I have seen children act like he does because they are being bullied at school. I would check with his school. Perhaps this will help solve his problem.