Tween looks "run down", says not sick or tired
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Anonymous
| DD is almost 11. Despite the week off from school, she looks run down. Dark circles under eyes. I keep asking if she's okay. She swears she feels fine. Her activity level has not slacked. Neighbors and teacher both commented that she looks sick or worn out. Is this just a growth spurt thing? Her annual checkup is this month. |
Anonymous
| Could it be anemia? I belatedly figured out I was probably anemic through most of my teen years. Worth asking the dr to check at least. Perhaps start her on general vitamins? |
Anonymous
| Look up allergic shiner. She might have an allergy or a sinus issue that is causing the dark circles. |
Anonymous
| Thank you, I will look up both. DD does not eat meat so it may be anemia. She also has allergies so it could be that as well! |
Anonymous
| Lack of vitamins? |
Anonymous
| Is she eating properly? No reason to suspect an eating disorder? |
Anonymous
Other than not eating meat anymore, no change in diet this year so I don't think an ED. She's athletically chunky if that makes sense. Not much body fat, but short and strong rather than willowy. Maybe going vegetarian on the brink of puberty was too great a drop in iron. She is eating a lot of iron rich foods based on the pediatrician's list, but maybe we do need a multivitamin with iron. |
Anonymous
|
Hey OP not meaning to make you alarmed but at the beginning of my eating disorder I went veg to get my parents off my back about eating dinner with them or what I was eating.
It could be nothing but just a heads up. It could very well be lack of vitamins, D deficiency, or stress of puberty. Hope she feels better soon |
Anonymous
Oh, I appreciate the heads up. I will definitely ask the pediatrician what to look for and if we can test for the other things. Thank you! |
Anonymous
| What time does she go to bed? I think our society is putting our kids later to bed these days and because it's socially more normal people don't think it's harming our kids. How much sleep is she getting? |
Anonymous
| Is she sneaking a cell phone and staying up late into the night texting or surfing? |
Anonymous
She gets 9-9.5 hours during the week. 10ish on the weekend. The homework load is staggering so it pushes her bedtime to 8:30. She commutes with me so she's up early and out the door before 7. This has been years though and never wore her down. She also swears she's not sleepy. |
Anonymous
| When's the last time she had a physical at the doctor? I'd bring her in and say what you're concerned about just to rule out any undetected medical issues. |
Anonymous
| Definitely rule out allergic shiners, anemia, vit D deficiency then if none of those are the cause, consider Lyme/tick co-infections which can be hard to diagnose b/c the test is often very inaccurate. This was one of DK's symptoms, but there were others including feeling run down at certain points which did happen to coincide with the dark circles. |
Anonymous
|
I had a friend in college who went veg and was eating a lot of cold cereal, not being careful about getting a healthy balance. She passed out and hit her head on the bathroom sink. Turned out it was anemia, iron supplements and a better diet were a big help.
Could also be she's smoking weed behind your back. |