Anxiety-induced stomach pain and vomiting? Training Pants at 8?

[Guest guest]

Hello all,

 

First of all, welcome! to all the newcomers to our group!  I post rather often,

but don't have much advice to give yet because we are still quite new to all

this, and I have no answers to offer yet, lol. But the sage continues at my

house, where we just found out this week from our new therapist that our 8 year

old dd has more severe OCD than we anticipated (after a year with another

non-effective therapist, this was quite a blow).

 

I've read discussions on here about distinguishing a " nervous stomach " from an

actual ailment, but do any of you have experience with anxiety actually causing

stomach pain, and to the point of vomiting? My dd became ill and vomited one

evening after a particularly stressful therapy session where she shared her

" what to do when you worry too much " book with her therapist at the time, and

then this week we had another stressful session with her new therapist where my

daughter had to admit her compulsion to have forced bowel movements. That night,

she began vomiting again. She thinks it's because she was so nervous at therapy

that morning.

 

She very frequently complains of her stomach hurting, and this week we finally

began ERP. We are beginning with her fear of " blood and guts " , and we watched a

short little cartoon about the digestive system on kidshealth.org (a good

website for this type of exposure, by the way). She said she was fine at first

watching it, but then grabbed my hand and repeatedly stroked it hard up and down

against her cheek as she watched. Then later, we went for a treat of hot

chocolate and cookie at Starbucks, and she couldn't even eat because she said

she was thinking of the cartoon. Obviously it affected her quite a bit, and that

was just her first exposure! What do you do when they remain haunted by the

exposure? It's like she's reliving it over and over...and we are doing a system

where she earns pom pom to fill a cup up to a reward activity, but she only gets

a pom pom for the first actual exposure (even though she remains tortured by

it). 

 

Now, just like the books say, she is responding with more anxiety than ever

since the ERP began. She has rituals and gesturing " tics " all over the place! I

can't decide if I should take her to the pdoc about her stomach, if there's some

med she can take for a nervous tummy, or what to do. She isn't on any meds for

her OCD, and now I understand why some kids need to get on meds to handle

ERP...we may be headed in that direction.

Also, I posed this question at the end of another response I made but it got

lost in the shuffle I think, is it any more common for these kids to have

trouble with nighttime potty training? She is almost 9 years old, and still

wearing training pants every night...and needs them most nights. She doesn't

want to take part in any sleepovers for this reason, but perhaps this is a

blessing since her OCD probably wouldn't allow it either. Just thought I'd

ask...she's a heavy sleeper, so there may be no connection, but I just didn't

know.

 

As always, thanks.