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Claire F
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| Posted: Feb 24 2012 at 2:30pm | IP Logged
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My four year old, Grayson, has been having issues lately. Part of it started a few months ago. He hates wearing a shirt. Most of the time, when he has to wear a shirt, he will put his arm down the collar, to pull it away from his neck. He says that his shirts bother him. It doesn't matter what kind. It started when DH put a button up shirt on him and buttoned it all the way to the top - he had an absolute meltdown (he'd never had shirt issues before) and since then, he's been hypersensitive to having anything near his neck. Taken by itself, the shirt thing wouldn't be so concerning, but...
He also has issues with smells. He's always had a sensitive nose, but lately the hypersensitivity to his shirt has been increased by an insistence that he smells something bad. It happens most frequently when he is wearing a shirt. He walks around with one hand down his collar and the other hand covering his nose and mouth. And sometimes he gets really upset about it.
This week it's escalated to episodes of, well, freaking out. He gets very upset, will sometimes scream and cry and he gags really hard. He'll say something smells bad, or that his shirt is choking him and start freaking out. He hasn't thrown up, but it's been severe enough that I've rushed him to the bathroom a few times this week.
He hasn't been sick at all (in fact, not at all this winter, which is amazing). He doesn't have a stuffy nose or a cough, although he does clear his throat and do this little "cough cough" thing a lot. Until this week, that seemed like a small idiosyncracy but now I wonder if it's all related.
Today at preschool (he goes a couple times a week) he had another gagging-screaming meltdown. The teacher talked to me about it when I picked him up. She suggested I get him checked out by our doctor, because there might be a physical cause - an ear or sinus infection, something stuck up his nose, etc. He doesn't have any signs of being sick, and when I ask him if anything hurts or feels weird (we talked about several parts of the body - does your arm feel weird? does your nose feel weird? etc.) he says no. He says he feels fine but everything smells like poop.
By the way, if your child thinks they smell something weird all the time, don't Google it...
I do plan to take him into the doctor to rule out a physical cause, but has anyone encountered something like this with your kids? Any thoughts or ideas? I feel so bad for the little guy.
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Claire
Mom to DS 12/04, DS 5/07, DD 8/09
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: Feb 24 2012 at 2:42pm | IP Logged
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I just today read this article about PANDAS.
Quote:
On Thursday, the International OCD Foundation, or IOCDF, warned that mental illnesses such as OCD can be triggered by infections in children.
“If a parent recognizes these symptoms developing seemingly overnight, along with a glaring change in their child’s personality and/or behavior, they should immediately have their child tested for strep,” agency officials said. |
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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kristinannie
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| Posted: Feb 24 2012 at 2:53pm | IP Logged
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I highly recommend this book. I just started reading it last night and it is very good. My son has similar issues with clothing as well as a lot of other sensitivities that can lead to meltdowns. I am hopeful that this book will give me ways of dealing with it.
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elynnmom
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| Posted: Feb 25 2012 at 8:37am | IP Logged
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CrunchyMom wrote:
I just today read this article about PANDAS.
Quote:
On Thursday, the International OCD Foundation, or IOCDF, warned that mental illnesses such as OCD can be triggered by infections in children.
“If a parent recognizes these symptoms developing seemingly overnight, along with a glaring change in their child’s personality and/or behavior, they should immediately have their child tested for strep,” agency officials said. |
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My first thought after reading your post was remembering when my daughter first experienced PANDAS when she was 4. The odd/unusual behaviors went away after 4 weeks or so. Then, they reappeared when she was 5, went away, and then when she was six, she actually had a really bad Strep infection. Then, her behaviors got *really* bizarre, and uncharacteristic. At that point, we were able to make the connection to the Strep infection and identify her difficulties as PANDAS. The doc said that she absolutely could have had strep those previous times, without us knowing, because strep can be so varied in presentation.
So, if these behaviors seem like they have arisen out-of-the-blue, I would definitely check out that aritcle that crunchymom posted and have your son checked for strep when you have him checked out at the doc. By the way, obsession about poop was part of my daughters experience, as well (she kept thinking she had it on her hands). She also became very unstable emotionally and *mean* to her little brother (extremely uncharacteristic).
I'll be praying for your family!
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Claire F
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| Posted: Feb 25 2012 at 5:00pm | IP Logged
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elynnmom, thank you for sharing your experience. Did your daughter seem sick the first time? He has had strep throat once, but it was over a year ago and he hasn't been sick (that we can see) for a long time. But perhaps he could have an infection that isn't presenting with obvious symptoms. I'll definitely ask our doctor about it (we have an appointment Monday morning).
Thank you for the book recommendation, Krisinannie. It looks like a very helpful read!
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Claire
Mom to DS 12/04, DS 5/07, DD 8/09
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elynnmom
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| Posted: Feb 27 2012 at 1:11pm | IP Logged
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Claire,
To answer your question, she did not have any illness that we can remember during the first couple episodes. My understanding is that with PANDAS, three things could be at play, either they have a current active and obvious strep infection, they are fighting strep quietly without any outward manifestations (sometimes a blood test is necessary for this situation), or they had a strep infection recently and their brain is still recovering from the effects of it (in our case, it took about 5-6 weeks after the strep infection for her to be back to normal).
Hope that helps. How did your visit with the doc go this morning?
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Claire F
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| Posted: Feb 27 2012 at 7:31pm | IP Logged
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Thanks elynnmom. :) I forgot to say, I'm glad you figured out what was going on!
His appointment went fine. Our doctor gave him a good once-over, and everything came back fine. He checked his blood count as well and there's no sign of infection or other illness.
In talking with him about it, we figure his natural sensitivities have probably been heightened by some other trigger - maybe he was fighting a mild virus, not getting quite enough sleep, or something like that. That, coupled with his regular tendencies to be overly sensitive to smells and clothing, have caused a more dramatic reaction. That builds on top of his anxiety that he will smell something bad if we go somewhere (which he tells me is why he doesn't want to leave the house) and it spiraled a bit out of control. Now that we know there isn't something physically wrong with him, we'll focus on helping him cope with his feelings and deal with the times when he is bothered by the stimuli (real or imagined, since we're not always sure).
We'll keep working with him and see if we can't help him cope when he feels upset. So far, taking his blankies in the car with him has helped a little.
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Claire
Mom to DS 12/04, DS 5/07, DD 8/09
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Jenn
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This sounds a bit like Sensory Integration problems. My 4th had some unusual difficulties with the way things felt, didn't like things touching him in certain ways, didn't like touching certain things. I found the book "the out of Sync Child", and "the Out of Sync Child has Fun" to be very helpful in figuring out sensory processing issues. I hope you figure out some ways to help him! God Bless!
Jen
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mommy4ever
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| Posted: April 19 2012 at 4:09pm | IP Logged
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I cared for a little boy years ago, that had similar issues. Have you had his nose checked out? This little guy had stuffed a piece of foam up his nose and it ended up really high. The can't breathe was the partial occlusion of a nostril, and the smell was the foam getting all nasty.
He didn't have any signs of illness, and it took the Drs. a long time to figure out.
Just a thought.
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Claire F
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| Posted: April 19 2012 at 5:14pm | IP Logged
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We wondered if he might have done something like that - if any of my kids would have stuffed something in his nose, it would be this one! LOL. No sign of anything up there though.
Actually, things have gotten SO much better in the last month. He's basically back to normal. He's still a little sensitive to smells, like he was before, and once in a while he will take off his shirt or pull on it when he's wearing one. But he's much, much less anxious and it has been quite a while since he had any issues with leaving the house.
We pretty much decided to love him through it and see if he got better. I've been working on giving him extra attention and spending some one on one time with him. I helped him calm down when he'd get upset and slowly but surely, his behavior returned to normal.
He's still a bit on the sensitive side, but we're back to it being a little quirk of his and not something that poses a difficulty in his daily life.
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Claire
Mom to DS 12/04, DS 5/07, DD 8/09
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: Issuse with my 4 year old
