When our son was around 2 years old, he took a pretty nasty fall into a windowsill that resulted in him having to get 8 stitches in his tongue. About 6 months after that, we noticed that he was starting to become a pretty picky eater. Foods that he had been eating no problem, now were a struggle. He would gag on certain foods which we were told at his yearly well visit, was just him being picky and his way of getting out of eating foods he did not want to eat. This went on for years. He was gaining weight so when I would bring up his eating habits, they were written off as “picky eating”. Fast-forward to February 2023, I took him in for his 6 year checkup to find that he had only gained one pound from the age of 5-6. After explaining (again) his eating habits and telling him the reason that he was not gaining weight was because he only will eat about 5 foods and is completely content going all day without eating, their solution was getting bloodwork done.
I had done some research on feeding therapy before this time (mom instinct was telling me something was just not right) and had found Carol’s site. As soon as I left that appointment, I immediately called her. She was the first medical professional that I felt asked the right questions and believed that there was something else going on other than just a “picky eater” situation.
While we were waiting to see her, she told me that I needed to get him into a pediatric nutritionist to ensure that he did not start losing weight and recommended that we get him in to see Dr. Dodson an ENT at the children’s hospital. Both recommendations made a world of difference. Upon examination at the ENT, we found out that his adenoids were extremely enlarged, and he had about 5-10% access to his nasal airway.
At this point, he had one ear infection and one case of strep throat, so we had no reason to think that his adenoids were the root cause of his eating issues. Carol did though! Dr. Dodson told us that the tongue injury was more than likely related to inflamed adenoids and that they had been slowly getting bigger and bigger which led to his eating getting harder and harder for him because he was trying to breathe, chew and swallow all using his mouth.
We got his adenoids removed in May and started feeding with Carol in June. At this time, even though structurally he was good, after years struggling with eating, he had a massive mental block when it came to trying new foods. Carol was compassionate with both of us. As a mom, having the guilt of learning that your child was struggling more than either of you realized was hard and I never once felt that she was judging me for that.
She kept the session fun and lighthearted but also structured which is what he needed. When she started working with him, he was eating 5-7 foods regularly and would not try any new foods or even branch off from different variations of his safe foods. We finished working with Carol at the beginning of January 2024. When he graduated, he had tried 85+ new foods and he is currently 2 foods away from 100 new foods since we started our journey with Carol!
She was a lifesaver not only for our son but our family as a whole. He has learned that new foods are not scary. We love Carol and cannot imagine where we would be right now without our experience working with her.
