Question
Our 11 year old daughter began expressing stomach discomfort in early spring (i.e. VERY frequent complaining). In the absence of obvious illness (diarrhea, pain in night w/disrupted sleep, etc..), we determined it was psychosomatic and tried to proceed with homeschooling 5th grade and life as normal. She is our fifth and youngest bio child and we are in process of adopting (fostering to adopt), but no match yet. After probably 2 months, I (mom) was beginning to doubt if we had made the correct assessment, so we proceeded to family Dr. for c/u. Dr. performed due diligence and all labs returned normal. The condition persists...not better, not worse. Headaches are also now part of the puzzle :/ I have, of course, considered her age and the future onset of menstruation as a cause. She had a HUGE growth spurt at the start of all of this. It was a HUGE strain to finish school (1st issue in schooling ever) and quite honestly some non-academic commitments dropped off the plate as we were trying to figure out what was real and not. We are beginning to suspect some level of manipulation as she can pull herself together for certain things and not for others. She has always been a bit of a worrier, but that tendency has exploded with these complaints. She is convinced something is seriously wrong with her and she will never get better. She has had a variety of weird eating hang-ups since it began: can't eat because makes her stomach hurt worse, chewing and holding food in mouth for long periods w/o swallowing, eating super SLOW, etc... These wave in and out. How do we make this go away and handle it until it does?
