Topic : 08/25 Extreme Food Obsessions

Also,  

I agree with the people who say stop buying junk food.  Sometimes genetic disease are made worse by the environment. You should be reading up on what food research has shown alleviate PW Syndrome.  I thought I heard something from another parent about not eating any dairy products or maybe it was only dairy products.  Reward your daughter by feeding her.  My professional advice is that she always have a cold bottle of water (so she feels full) or milk and a box of a dozen popsicles a day is not going to hurt her.  Tell her she can have unsalted homemade potatoe cubes but  ask her if she first will drink a full cup of kool-aid and then ask her if she wants another, before she can have the potatoes.  Something where you used healthy foods to reward her.  Plan ahead that you will have to feed her veggies and sandwich halves 12 times a day.  

  

I'll go to the university library and research you conditions myself..It may take a week, but I will post my finding. 

  

Please feel free to add me to you mailing list, and contact me some time.  Your path is right up my alley. 

  

Jaclyn

 

I cannot believe a parent would go on national television and admit to calling her mentally challenged child "stupid, a f**ing idiot, and a moron"!     I am the mother of a beautiful 14 year old daughter with PWS.   And yes, Nichelle, I do know what it is like to be a single parent.    My children's father and I divorced when my oldest was 4, my middle one was 2, and my PWS baby was 6 months old.   He couldn't handle the stress of having a child who had a feeding tube, was on heart monitors, and needed constant care.  She wasn't perfect and required too much attention for him!   So I did it as a single parent for almost 5 years until I met my current husband.     I struggled to work full time, pay rent, pay baby-sitters, take her to all of her doctors, therapists, etc.  and also raise a 2 & 4 year old.    And I asked myself constantly "why did this happen to me?"    Well it didn't happen to me, it happened to my child!     As her parent, it is my responsibility to care for her, protect her, and help her in every way possible as we all struggle with this syndrome.    To encourage her to be the best she can be, to teach her to live with her disability while holding her head up high, and to be proud of the things she can do, and not focus on the things she can't do.    She is now in the 9th grade, has an aide in school, and splits her classes between learning support and mainstream.    Everyone in school adores her, students and teachers.   She has more friends than most "normal" kids her age.    Yes, she does have temper tantrums on occassion, but once you learn about PWS, you'll also learn how to deal with the many aspects of the syndrome.   My 19 year old daughter made a special trip home from college today just to watch the show with me.     She was horrified!    She wanted to reach through that TV screen and tear you apart for the awful things you were  saying about your daughter.    My  daughter's response to everything you were saying was "she obviously knows nothing about PWS"!    I couldn't agree more!!    We both sat and cried our eyes out during the whole segment.  You do need  help desperately.     You want people to commend you for having the "balls" to go on national TV and ask for help.    I can't believe you had the "balls" to present yourself  and talk about your child the way you did!     Don't give me the sob story of being young and a single mom.     You may have had your child at a young age, but at 24 years old now, you should be mature enough to know that hitting and name calling a child, handicapped or not, is so wrong!!      I have read most of the posts from today's show and I still don't know how I want to react to you.   Part of me feels sorry for you because you are walking around with blinders on, you don't want to know anything about PWS because  then you'll have to face the fact that your child is not perfect.    The other part of me wants to slap the crap out of you to make you listen, just like you're doing to your little girl.    She's 6 years old for God's sake!      You need to wake up and start learning everything you can about your child's disorder and then start being a responsible, loving, caring parent to your child.    The first and most important thing you need to know is a child with PWS CANNOT control their hunger.   You can't have food accessible to her and expect her not to eat it.    We have locks on the refrigerator, the basement door, and the utility cabinet.     We have changed the combination a zillion times because we get careless and leave the lock lay on the table while we're cooking , etc.    Even with us in the same room, she can grab something in the blink of an eye and we never know it.    The urge to eat is overwhelming to someone with PWS and your job is not to yell, scream, and beat your child into refusing food, but to keep her happy and healthy by using common sense and locking the food up!    So what if it's an inconvenience for you, the health and happiness of your child is what's important.   Please, please get help for yourself and start being a fighter for your child, not a fighter against her!

I thought Cathy was so incredibly brave to be able to oversome her eating disorder. I have never been anywhere near as severe as her, but I know a little of what it's like to have your life structured around food and to try and give that up. It isn't like giving up a bad habit, it's giving up an entire way of life that - at least for me - represents a kind of security. The willingness to try and venture outside that life, especially after so many years, is inspirational. I don't think I could do it. I still try and keep my weight between 94-96, right now I am 95, and I can't picture myself letting go of that struggle. I am 22, and I am so lucky I didn't get as sick as her: this is not my strength but pure chance. I got to 89 trying to give myself a safety margin so I could eat sometimes without worrying, but would have kept pushing that margin further and further back if I hadn't had to go on Risperdal, which made me gain weight and give up past staying at 94. Unlike Cathy, I don't think I would have ever been able to stop. I hope she knows how great she is for doing something so scary.

I know I'm rambling. I guess I should say something that sounds profound: Cathy, you are not an anorexic. You HAD anorexia, and now you are recovering, but that is never who you WERE. Like you (I think), I sometimes struggle to believe that there is more to me than a label, that there is no label and no extreme of that label that could ever capture who I am. Maybe for me, that's the scariest part of all.

 Hello Dr. Phil:

I just watched your show on "Extreme food obsessions" which featured Prader Willi Syndrome.  My 21 month old son has Prader Willi Syndrome and I am writing to beg you to consider telling the rest of the PWS story.

There are people that have PWS that have graduated college and many are not "mentally retarded" (I hate that term) at ALL.

Please think about the disservice that is done when the media only shows the worst-case scenarios of a medical condition.  There is soo much therapy, medicine and intervention that could have and SHOULD have been shared with your viewers.  Honestly, I am afraid that any brand new moms with a new diagnosis may decide to just give up based on what they saw on your show.

There are wonderful success stories about the great strides that have been made to fight this terrible disorder.

I am going to FIGHT to find a cure for the terrible hunger that plagues my child, please, please, please join me.  We know that it is possible and we just NEED someone like you to help us with raising awareness and research dollars to find that magic pill to end the hunger.

Further, the experts all agree that WHEN they find the pill that helps PWS people feel full, it WILL work for the general population, imagine that a diet pill that actually works, YOU CAN HELP MAKE THAT HAPPEN.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE, join in the FIGHT to help all people with PWS end the terrible devastating hunger, you have the power, please use it and tell the WHOLE STORY.

Thank you for listening.

Sincerely,

Joyce

I watched Thursday's show and I was totally outraged with Nichelle and how she has been treating her daughter. This mother just does not get it. I still don't think she gets it after watching her reaction to the family that had the older PWS daughter. While my daughter does not have PWS she is a special needs child that is diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders. Her behaviours are completely irrational at times and it is extremely stressful to have a child like her. I am very far from perfect and admit to raising my voice and at times I did yell at her when she was younger. However you have to draw the line when it comes to beating a child with a belt and/or  verbally and emotionally abusing any child. To know that you have a disabled child and continue to abuse your child just makes it that much harder to understand.  To think of what that poor child has been through. I really think Nichelle thought that we were going to feel sorry for her and condone how she has been raising this child. While the child has a very serious disability and is extremely frustrating to raise it offers an explanation for her behaviour but in my opinion it is definately not an excuse.  There will never be an excuse that warrants abusing any child never mind a child with PWS.  

  

 What this mother has been doing is definately child abuse and I am a bit suprised that Child Protection Services were not called regarding this mother and her treatment of her developmentaly delayed/disabled daughter.  I think that this child needs to be removed from the care of her mother until such time that the mother has been given enough training on PWS and gets her butt into anger management classes before this child should allowed in this mother's care. To have a child is privledge not a right, regardless of the disabilities the child may have.  

  

When a child is first born and the doctor announces that you have a healthy baby you immediately start to dream of  your healthy child's future. When the world comes crashing down around you because your child is not like the average ordinarly child you start wondering where you went wrong. Once you have a diagnosis you go through a denial period, then you go through perioid of mourning. You mourn for the loss of your normal child, or at least most do. Then you go through an period of anger and you hate the world because it is just not fair. Then there is acceptance so you can own the problem. If you don't own the problem it will never get better.  Nichelle has neither owned the problem nor does she seem willing to accept that her child will never be normal. Savannah is in my thought and in my prayers as she is going to need so much support to just make it to adulthood.  

  

Canadianmom  

  

  

i am the father  of a 12 year old boy logan he has pws i could feed him a 10 course meal of steak and salad and when his plate was empty his response would be one more bite please. pws also has a real down side effect in that he does not develop lean muscle so he cannot metabolize calories. he must observe a very strict calorie limited diet he has 200 cal for breakfast 100 cal snack at 10am 200 cal lunch 100 cal snack at 4pm and 200 cal dinner. 800 cal a day or he puts on a pound for every 3000 he has in excess. the answer is not to let them put on weight because you have to starve them to get it off. the behavior you saw is some what typical our biggest battles are fights over food. you as a caregiver are limited to the same menu and portions or he feels you are cheating him. you must keep on schedule or he stresses about when he will get his food. his ocds are at times enough to drive you insane he repeats the same question over and over like a scratched record. you cant tell him an event in advance unless that is all you want to talk about till then. logan is soooooo cool he is my best friend he has a love for every one around him and cannot stand to see someone un happy he will hug a stranger, tell the cook at the restaurant thanks for the food, and greet every one with a smile when he has a melt down he feels so bad for often they become violent he feels so bad and cant get over it until he has the reassurance that the relationship is OK. I'm not gonna kid you this is the hardest thing i have ever had to do. to keep your cool when hes out of control is hard. this takes so much patience and time and money. i wouldn't trade him for anything in the world

I have to agree, that for me also, the show brought many triggers.  However, I had a choice to continue watching, in which I did, or turn the channel.  Even though the triggers surfaced I still had to make the choice to act upon the triggers or use coping skills that I remembered from residential treatments.  As far as anorexic vs. obesity, both are disorders, neither about food, but always issues.  I write from experience because at one time I was 202 (plus more but that was the last weigh in I did) until I became anorexic and was involuntarly hospitalized at 102.  To either extreme of the scales is unhealthy and if help is not asked for, the end result is the same.  It is so much about choice.

 Call it whatever you want. Screaming at and slapping a child (FOR WHATEVER REASON) is abuse....pure and simple.

perhaps all you people who critizised nichelle should be put in her shoes for a while.nichelle is suffering from burnout.atleast she asked for help and admitted that she was not managing to deal properly with her child.as for dr.phil yelling at her on stage about her conduct,maybe he should try being in her shoes as well.it's not easy.i feel for her.she needs help with the child and some time out from for both their sakes.