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I know this basically nothing compared to what some of you are living with right now, but it is a challenge for us.  DD14 really seems to be a hypochondriac.  This morning her dog, a pit bull, bumped into her cheek with his head.  She is texting me from school now telling me her jaw is cracking whenever she tries to open and close it and she is in "so much pain".  I made an appointment with her doctor - not a big deal as he is on the way home and we only have a co-pay.  I know she will not be satisfied until she sees a medical professional.  However right now she has a FB friend who was injured and has her jaw wired shut.  I am pretty certain she wants to "be like this friend".  DD is not going to be content this afternoon, I guarantee, unless he sends her for x rays and such.  Even if he does, she is going to act like she doesn't believe what he says (if he says its just bruised, or anything minor which I am pretty sure it is) or what the X ray shows.  She is then going to insist they need to send her for an MRI.  It is never going to end.  I know like I said, this is NOT a major deal here, but is anyone else dealing with things like this - where they don't even believe the doctor?  How do you handle it?

Thanks!

Hi bioadoptmom-

When I first started living with SD22 and her Dad (she was 15) there was a spare bathroom in the house and the cabinet was literally filled with ace bandages, elbow and knee braces, and those hot packs that people with arthritis use to alleviate pain. All were purchased for my SD for various maladies, injuries or whatever. I suspect that a lot of these pains and injuries came about when a friend might have had a sports injury, a sprain, etc. SD didn't do any sports and so far as I know, never had a medically diagnosed sprain or injury. She has never broken a bone. She has been to the ER at least 30 times since I've known her.

I've had some success with a few things.

First I've found that validating how she feels is important.

I've had some luck in offering OTC meds and telling her that if she will give it 30 minutes that I'm sure she will feel the effects of the pain relief.

Basically I try to distract her, get her to wait a few minutes, hours or days and when nothing else works I encourage her to go to our family doctor. Luckily she trusts this doctor and this doctor understands her hypochondria.

Perhaps when your DD is convinced that she needs more medical attention than what she has already gotten you can tell her IF she still has pain in x number of days you will take her to a different doctor. I would keep an eye on her activities and use SET (support, empathy, truth) to explain to her, for example, someone with a broken bone in their hand can't type on a keyboard or do gymnastics (or whatever it is you have seen her doing with her injured whatever). While you are waiting for the period of time to pass make an attempt to busy her, distract her and give her some extra strokes when you talk to her.

After my SD moved out when she was 19, we started just validating her and explaining that if she needed a trip to the ER she would need to pay any incidental expenses from the visit herself. She is also to pay for any co-pays to the doctor's office herself.

What is super challenging is that often she gets so caught up in her medical issue that you can't get straight answers from her about pain, fever, weakness, symptoms etc. The last time she went to the ER a friend who was sick of her complaining and thought she wasn't really sick took her there but left her to deal with it alone. I don't think she will be going back to the ER again any time soon. She sat there all night without being seen by anyone and had to call a cab to get home once she was seen and told nothing was wrong with her.

Good luck... . this is hard!

Thursday

I would give it back to her in this way... .

I'm sorry to hear you are in pain. That is not fun and I hear your (fill in the blank) with worry, frustration etc. How can you take care of yourself right now?

If she can't answer that question, then suggest going to the nurse's office for ice, Advil etc.

If your gut is telling you she is overstating her actual situation, don't play into it. It was the only way we were able to break our d of this. We were frequently running to the doctor or ER and it only made her more frustrated because they could never find anything wrong. There was so much energy and time wasted over nothing. It fed her to keep playing it out with her and she could never be satisfied. It also did not give her the opportunity to learn to take care of herself, soothe herself etc. It got so bad, we enlisted help from my sister to break her pattern. Thus, if she wanted to go to the doctor or the ER, we were tied up and couldn't take her and she could call her aunt to drive her. She did it one time and never did that again. Our lesson was that sometimes we had to look to others to break a behavior pattern. One time I dropped her off at the ER and my sister picked her up. My point is try to be creative and find avenues that might disrupt what she is trying to regulate through being a "hypochondriac".

I haven't had any experience with that, but for what I know, with any patient who has traits of a hypochondriac; the less testing they get the better. If she gets used to getting x-rays, lab work, MRI’s, etc., her problem will get worse. Just take her to the doctor and follow whatever is recommended.  Medical providers rarely order unnecessary tests just because patients request them, so she probably will not get her way (hopefully not, there is a lot of radiation in that stuff).

Hi, I haven't replied on many things lately. It’s been relatively quiet on my end.  I had this problem in the past with my DD.  She's now 19 and I still kind of deal with this from time to time.

First off I've learned to validate how they feel from this website and it's brought down the level of drama between the 2 of us.

Then I use boundaries and explain what I will do and won't do and stand my ground.  :)epending on the circumstance especially if it's valid or not.  Meaning did she really hurt herself.  I live in Canada and care is free still it put a burden on the system and I don't allow it.  If you live in a place where things aren't covered it's an expensive indulgence to give into her every illness.

If it's real; then of course I help her then and now.

If it's not real I just put my foot down and say no and give her the consequence of giving in to picking up an idea she's heard about and apply to her, as well as harassing me until she gets what she wants.  They can get pushy with their own agendas.

I know it seems easier said than done, but if you put in the boundaries it get easier because they then know where you stand.