29/12/2024
I posted this comment on one of my forums but thought it would be useful to share for this interested here. This was in response to the question asked by a parent of a child: "Is it possible to ever fully recover from ARFID?"....
To be clear, it depends on the type of ARFID.
To make things more confusing there is a simple version and a complex version in each category. For instance, there is a non-neurodiversity version and a neuro version
of ARFID, which in turn can be simple or complex.
Non-neuro version - food or feeding PTSD (early colic, choking, reaction to meds, being exposed to foods palate not ready for, forced feeding, reaction to meds etc).
The simple versions - can be successfully treated even in one session because there is just one spanner in the works. I have seen a lot of people that at heart are actually foodies. They like cooking but can't eat their own food. In most cases if you remove the 'spanner', they end up liking everything they try in the session and run with it after the session. So that is one end of the spectrum.
Then we have the sensory processing version. On one end of the spectrum (simple version) sensory processing is highly distorted by fear. 'I expect food textures to taste this way, and they start to taste this way, which makes me gag'. The simple version is like a placebo effect. If fear is mostly responsible for distorting perception, then therapy addressing fear can make dramatic changes.
On the other end of the spectrum, tastes are wired differently or perceived differently which means the tastes will always taste that way. Hypermobility is comorbid with extra sensory issues. This is a stable trait. True there is often some anticipatory anxiety which inflates this further. My son is hypermobile and as such extra sensory with food. He will never be a foodie like me but his range has increased massively over the years, as has his confidence to try new foods, because there was a lot of anticipatory anxiety in the past.
Neuro-version. You can have normal food traumas in development but also comorbid with neurodiversity issues and you can also have ARFID directly due to neuro issues such as not understanding hunger and other interoception cues. Some people are just not interested in food and not due to trauma.
So you can have normal pickiness in childhood which neuro-issues will inflate. You can have food-PTSD in childhood which neuro will also inflate.
You can have a neuro-kid with ARFID who has simple ARFID and happens to be neuro, and you can have a kid who has neuro which led to complex ARFID.
You can have some neuro-kids (and adults) that respond actually better than average if their ARFID is trauma-driven because many autistic high-functioning kids make good clients because they are good at following instructions to the letter (e.g. the example below is an autistic child. I've seen many of these). And you can have more severe cases of autism and ADHD where the child cannot focus, cannot process what is being said etc.
So.. it depends on the kid and the type of ARFID and the interaction between them.
There is also the PANS/PANDAS version of ARFID due to a strep infection causing inflammation of the brain and affecting behaviours. This needs to be treated with antibiotics to reduce inflammation. Behaviours tend to self-correct afterwards. Sometimes a residual fear-habit can remain which can be treated.
https://youtu.be/MMw4bHEt9aI - 14 year old autistic boy
I know I mentioned on my last YouTube video that I would no longer upload clients vids since there would be nothing else to prove, however, I had to make an ...
