Let the weight loss begin

No, not mine. Though I sure wish it was. LOL

I'm talking about Angela. We were told that one of the side effects of the new seizure meds she's on is weight loss. That was part of the reason her neurologist wanted her to switch because of the weight GAIN she'd had on her other meds.

It has taken us a couple of weeks to get up to the full dose of the new medication, and to decrease the old. We noticed at the end of last week that she wasn't eating every single crumb of food on her plate at dinner time. By Monday breakfast had become a "take it or leave it" kind of thing.

Yesterday her teacher called to let me know she's not eating much of her lunch at school. Even her favorites she's only 1/2 interested in. They're offering her snacks, but she's turning them down! Ummmm if you know Angela, you know "snack" is one of her favorite words. LOL

So, I have completely chalked this up to her meds. It makes sense, since we started the new ones, etc. However, 2 weeks ago we also noticed she's having even more trouble swallowing, and it's taking more and more liquid to get the food to move down her esophagus. So, last night at dinner, I put her plate in front of her, and she looked at me with big eyes, "I can't eat this. It hurts."

HUH? She has NEVER complained about pain when she eats. We can SEE that she's in pain, but she's never verbalized it. When there IS a food she doesn't like (extremely rare!) if you can get her to eat a few bites she usually forgets about it and finishes the whole meal.

I said, "This is soft food. You should be ok. Take 10 bites, and then you can be done." thinking she'd forget about it. No, she struggled through 5 bites, (and it was a struggle for her to swallow it) and I told her she could be done.

Looks like I need to go buy some Boost. She doesn't like pediasure anymore after our palate expander experience last spring. I'm also going to buy a juicer this weekend. Who knows where this non-eating is coming from. Maybe it's a combination of the two. Maybe before her new meds, she was always voraciously hungry so that won out over the pain of eating? Now that she's not so hungry, it's harder to force herself to eat?

She sure keeps me guessing about things all the time!