Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Dear Noah:


For 2 nights in a row now you have been sticking your finger up your nose to make it bleed. Picking is one thing.....not sure about this. You came to me and leaned over and whispered in my ear: "now mommy......it is okay for me to eat my blood ..........it is good for my stomach.........is it okay for me to drink blood?" things like that. It sort of freaked me out a bit! I asked you if you liked the taste of blood and you said "OH YES!" all excited. You were wanting reassurance it was okay to drink blood. You kept telling me it would be good for you. I said I thought it was sort of gross....you just laughed and giggled. hum........I know kids can be lacking something nutritionally when they crave things like this. Not sure if this is an actual craving or you just want assurance that because you made your nose bleed picking it......it is okay. I know with your semi-limited diet of foods you eat you most likely are lacking something.

i love you a lot.....but this was sort of spooky.....especially on Halloween night. I wondered if you had seen something about vampires and sucking of blood......but it was not like that.

anyway.....love you lots noah

mommy :X

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You might point out that although he's taking his own blood and "recycling" it, it takes lots of energy for his body turn it back into blood again (since his digestive juices destroy the good cells)

Iron deficiency can make people crave blood. Usually this manifests as a craving for red meat/steak. Have you talked with your doctor about using a vitamin supplement? Most kids dont mind taking these because they come in many forms (chewables, gummies, and candy chews). Ask about one that contains iron. (Many don't because of the fear of overdose if a child gets into the container and eats more than they should).

We have used pediasure and nutripals (which are like candybars) to fill in nutritional gaps but these can be rather expensive. We use these mainly when my son simply wont eat. A friend of mine has a medicare waiver for her autistic child and covers the expense this way.

Melinda said...

thanks lynanne......I have multivitamins Noah will finally take...and they have extra iron...but he won't always chew up and eat the entire thing. I know his diet is deficient. This is a kid who does not eat any real veggies or fruits to speak of. His fruit...ONLY fruit consists of Gerber Stage 3 banana baby food...though a couple of times he has eaten fruit roll ups...not that it is that nutritious. He has taken the tiniest bite of apple slice...but won't eat it.

Same for veggies....it consists of tater tots, hashbrowns or fries. ALL potatoes. I finally got him to taste a kernel of corn and carrot slice...but he won't actually eat any quantity to do any good. I was anemic when I was pregnant with him and had iron deficiency anemia even as a child. I would not doubt he has issues as even with the multivitamin he is hugely lacking in the veggie/fruit world. He is also craving tomato sauce now and eats tons of it....so I let him. Otherwise....he does not really get any veggies or fruits.

Melinda said...

Also Noah is not that into chewable vitamins to want to eat more than his one per day. AND I have a hard time getting him to even eat that sometimes! He has not been one to like the gummy stuff......or chewy things...so he would not even try those.