YES!!!!
I cannot express how excited we are to finally be getting the right therapy for Coop.
9 months ago, I went into the doctor and requested a feeding eval to be seen by a feeding therapist.
They had us see a therapist and she agreed that Cooper needed feeding therapy.
This was before we found out Cooper had EOE.
They put us in contact with an Early Intervention program, and that is where things started going wrong
They had us work with and occupational therapist.
I told them multiple times our main focus needs to be feeding therapy.
They said OT would do both.
So we started working with her.
Mind you, it took MONTHS to get him qualified for their program, and three separate in home meetings....
The first few meetings, I always had food prepared for Cooper to eat.
But the therapist would always work with toys and finger paints and goop, and when I said he needs to eat, because we scheduled it around lunch time so we could do the feeding therapy too, she seemed a little irked, and that I was almost bothering her.
After the first few sessions, she sort of phased out the eating and focused solely on OT.
We prepared food a few times, but she didn't really incorporate it.
We talked to GI and asked for another feeding eval and to focus only on seeing a feeding therapist, and he agreed.
After meeting with the therapist, it was decided Cooper would be needing feeding therapy, starting out for three months for our first block.
He needs this therapy for two reasons:
His muscles in his mouth are underdeveloped due to lack of eating for pretty much his entire life. chewing small portions of food becomes exhausting for Cooper. you can see it when he is chewing. He takes a few chews, then has to stop.
The second reason, being that he needs to have different textures introduced, and he refuses to eat anything different than what he likes (most two year olds do this, but his is becoming debilitating since he can only eat such few things)
He will only eat crunchy or super soft/liquid texture.
He won't even touch anything in between.
When we mentioned that we would be seeing a feeding therapist to our OT, she became very upset.
She said she tried traditional therapies, but Cooper can't have many things so "good luck to her with that"
Jaw drop.
I understand Cooper's situation is a bit unique, and traditional things may not work on him.
So her idea was to just give up and not give him what he needs to thrive, instead of doing additional work to find ways to help him.
Traditional feeding therapy is when a therapist sits down with a child to help their eating.
They have multiple foods, flavors, textures, and temperatures.
Since Cooper can only have apples, carrots, bananas, white potato and we are trialing coconut, that is more difficult.
I understand his therapy is more difficult than others, but leaving a child without the help he needs because he is "different" or "more work" is NOT ok.
We have our meeting to end our OT sessions because he is handling tactile sensory so well.
From here on out, we expect to just be working with the feeding therapist.
They had us see a therapist and she agreed that Cooper needed feeding therapy.
This was before we found out Cooper had EOE.
They put us in contact with an Early Intervention program, and that is where things started going wrong
They had us work with and occupational therapist.
I told them multiple times our main focus needs to be feeding therapy.
They said OT would do both.
So we started working with her.
Mind you, it took MONTHS to get him qualified for their program, and three separate in home meetings....
The first few meetings, I always had food prepared for Cooper to eat.
But the therapist would always work with toys and finger paints and goop, and when I said he needs to eat, because we scheduled it around lunch time so we could do the feeding therapy too, she seemed a little irked, and that I was almost bothering her.
After the first few sessions, she sort of phased out the eating and focused solely on OT.
We prepared food a few times, but she didn't really incorporate it.
We talked to GI and asked for another feeding eval and to focus only on seeing a feeding therapist, and he agreed.
After meeting with the therapist, it was decided Cooper would be needing feeding therapy, starting out for three months for our first block.
He needs this therapy for two reasons:
His muscles in his mouth are underdeveloped due to lack of eating for pretty much his entire life. chewing small portions of food becomes exhausting for Cooper. you can see it when he is chewing. He takes a few chews, then has to stop.
The second reason, being that he needs to have different textures introduced, and he refuses to eat anything different than what he likes (most two year olds do this, but his is becoming debilitating since he can only eat such few things)
He will only eat crunchy or super soft/liquid texture.
He won't even touch anything in between.
When we mentioned that we would be seeing a feeding therapist to our OT, she became very upset.
She said she tried traditional therapies, but Cooper can't have many things so "good luck to her with that"
Jaw drop.
I understand Cooper's situation is a bit unique, and traditional things may not work on him.
So her idea was to just give up and not give him what he needs to thrive, instead of doing additional work to find ways to help him.
Traditional feeding therapy is when a therapist sits down with a child to help their eating.
They have multiple foods, flavors, textures, and temperatures.
Since Cooper can only have apples, carrots, bananas, white potato and we are trialing coconut, that is more difficult.
I understand his therapy is more difficult than others, but leaving a child without the help he needs because he is "different" or "more work" is NOT ok.
We have our meeting to end our OT sessions because he is handling tactile sensory so well.
From here on out, we expect to just be working with the feeding therapist.
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