Loss of control eating syndrome & Adhd

[melissary]

My son is 9 and has Adhd and anxiety. He is showing major signs of binge eating does anyone have any info or experience with Loss of control eating syndrome? I'm going to be contacting his pediatrician when his office is open.

[anirush]

My younger grandson had issues with this but mostly when he is unstable. Try to substitute fruit or low calorie snacks. Protein also helps to fill them up more.

[melissary in reply to anirush]

thank you

[OliverM]

Yes! My son had this for years! I used to find food wrappers hidden all over the house! Finally a nutritionist that we consulted said that she's seen this at homes for those who are on the autistic spectrum. They have to lock up the food because many of them don't have a sense of when they are full. Plus they are impulsive. My son is now 21 and has grown out of it! I hope yours does too! Best wishes!

[melissary in reply to OliverM]

We've thought of locking up the food, he tends to do the majority of his extreme eating when we are asleep, thanks for the answer!

[Onthemove1971]

Welcome to the group!! This is such a great question, many of our children have issues around eating. I worried about this with our son and I was told by our therapist that this was related to impulse control.

The therapist asked me questions about his habits with eating, does he cut things in the small pieces and portion them off. Does he tend to save food and only eat small amounts... There are a number of classic "signs" that there is an eating disorder and our son did not do any of these things, so he connected it to the hyperfocus and impulse control. This helped us a lot and he has grown out of that issue.

Impulse control impacts so many areas- for example when our son ( he is 13 years old) makes chocolate milk with a bottle of syrup and white milk he will squeeze and squeeze way to much chocolate into the glass and the bottle will quickly be empty. Another example is when he showers he uses way to much bottle soap...

So you will see this impact many areas of life, hope this help..

We are always here to support and share with you.

Take care

[melissary in reply to Onthemove1971]

Thanks for the response, he does tend to do things like using too much of other things, I've been finding his impulsives have been more extreme since we've been stuck at home because of Covid 19.

[Onthemove1971 in reply to melissary]

While on Covid we are giving our son the same medications to help him stay stable. All of his binge eating stopped about 1 year ago. Maturity also helps.

Good luck!

[OliverM in reply to Onthemove1971]

Yes, my son’s started when he was 7 and was at home for 8 weeks recovering from a surgery due to a bone infection....

[dubstepMaul]

My son is an adult but when he was a child we never had a problem with binge eating. Now however he definitely struggles with this. He eats often and he eats large quantities. Some of this is appetite increase when not on meds but he admits he has a problem with overeating. He counters this with exercise but when the gym closed due COVID the exercise went out the window. I've been round and round with him reminding to eat healthy foods and make good choices etc. He is very aware but still impulsively eats.