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Now Reading: The King Is Packing On The Pounds This Holiday Season!!

The King Is Packing On The Pounds This Holiday Season!!

I’ve written on here many times about the king’s struggle with appetite and weight gain.  There was a 6 month stretch about 2 years back where he lost 6 pounds. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but for a then 7 year old, it was 10% of his body weight. And his pediatrician was kinda concerned.

The wife took upon herself to get those pounds back on him BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. And she did, but the feeding process was was always excruciating and put a strain on their relationship.

I wrote about his weight issues HERE. You REALLY should read that to get a taste of he feeding problems before moving forward.  Please read that one now…

Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you… I’ll look at this pic of Mariah Carey in a Santa suit while I wait for y’all…

Are you back already?   Did you read it? Ok, so now moving forward.

So that post was written in June 2011. And things had gotten a little better in the 17 months since then. She got the weight back on him and he kept it on, maybe going up a pound or two…but still in the same weight range he was in when he was a chunky 6 year old and he’s now 9.

But the feeding process hadn’t gotten much better. We would check his school lunch. It was almost all there, left over. And wifey would try to force feed him dinner…maybe using popcorn or Cheerios as reward/ bribery 🙂

Then in October we wound up back in the hospital for more seizures.  (read about that hospital visit HERE).  Kyle had a 24 hour EEG & they put him on a new anti-seizure med, Depakote.  And this new med came with all the usual warnings.

“it may cause him to have an increased appetite and gain weight”

And the wife & I were like, “yeah, we’ve heard that before with a bunch of other meds he’s been on and it’s never happened… we would welcome some weight gain, but we don’t expect it.”

And in mid-October Kyle went on Depakote, and we slowly worked up his dose.  And thinking back, maybe we did see some increased appetite.  He definitely had more aggression / meltdowns and thinking back, maybe those were hunger related.

But it never really kicked in til around Thanksgiving.  It was around then, that we worked up his dose to the full amount that his neurologist wanted him on.  And I wrote about how on Thanksgiving Day he was raging, with multiple meltdowns (read here).  I even said that maybe they were hunger related.

Well, they were!  We don’t have a scale in our house, but from Thanksgiving to Christmas, I’ll bet he put on 6-7 pounds.

He now snacks all day long and also has 3 meals a day!  He actually comes and sits down at the table when he wants a true meal!

And when his belly is full, he is a delight to be around!  But if you don’t feed the beast 🙂 in time…WATCH OUT!

Having an increased appetite, and eating more comes with some new challenges.  Mainly he has more bowel movements and has to pee more… and sometimes has more gas than before… and he doesn’t always know what all these different feelings feel like… so he’s been having alot more pee-pee accidents lately…sometimes probably from trying to push out some gas and then a little pee comes out…  lol

But all in all, we are truly happy with this new increased appetite… but it’s amazing how quickly things change.

We went from trying to fatten him up.  Wifey adding extra butter or whole milk to lots of his favorite foods or deep frying them….to now trying to offer him more fruit and hoping he gets satiated on the healthier lower calorie options.

And before you say it… we tried GFCF diet years back.  He was on it for 18 months and we saw no improvement.  In fact he kinda regressed & got worse while on it.  (I wrote a little about that HERE).  So we are not looking to try any new diets right now.  🙂

But anyway, for now we are kinda thrilled to have a healthy looking kid with a good appetite vs the skinny bony kid we had just a few months ago.  And hopefully the weight gain will level off

However, once we get him on an actual scale and see where we are at, we might be shifting into diet mode!  But one step at a time….

Here’s a before and after pic.

On the left was October 2012 and on the right was yesterday…

As y’all know, Kyle holds his breath and protrudes his belly… which makes him look “fat” in the before pic…but look how BONY he was… and look how healthy he looks now!

Yay Depakote!

That’s all for now…

Over and out!

THE END..

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If you’re gonna shop Amazon anyway, can I ask that you enter Amazon by using the search box below?  This way I can make a little money.  This blogging thing has been awesome & life changing for me… but I must admit that it’s taking up a lot more time than I ever thought… so if I can make a few bucks it’ll make it easier for me to justify….Love you all!Thanks!!

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Written by

Frank Campagna

I’m a 48 year old neurotypical dad with a 14 year old son with severe, non-verbal autism & epilepsy. I created this blog to rant about autism & epilepsy while celebrating my son who I affectionately call “the king” :-).


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13 People Replies to “The King Is Packing On The Pounds This Holiday Season!!”

  1. Went to the dr today for other reasons… But while there we weighed him and he is 68.6 pounds!!! Up about 7 pounds in 1 month!!

    He's finally in the 50th percentile for his weight based on age/height!!

    Let's just hope he settles in at this weight cuz I'm not sure i have the upper body strength for 75+ pounds right now…

    I gotta give up running and take up weight training!!

  2. Anonymous

    So nice that the King WANTS to eat, and apparently he'll eat a wide variety of foods now, not just popcorn.

    I had a speech therapy client with feeding/sensory issues (very picky eater) and speech delays. At 1-1/2 yrs old she kept falling often; some days a lot, others not quite as much. She had a ton of tests done. After she was put on a med that increased her appetite the dr. figured out it was low blood sugar from not eating enough that was making her stumble and fall. Interesting ending to the story: She is now 12 and an incredible gymnast who may go to the Olympics some day.

  3. Anonymous

    Our son Gavin had 0 weight gain until we put him on the same meds. He doesn't eat three meals but does do 2 a day now with more snacking and is slowly making progress.

  4. That's Awesome ! Josh has his share of meds too and unfortunatley it's like roller coaster most days. He eats breakfast at school,won't eat at home, too early and he'll get sick on the bus. Then I pack his lunch and it's hit or miss if he eats it. Once home he only drinks, then all of the sudden around 7:30 he is ravenous, stealing from the fridge,cabinets,freezer etc..( I have to be proactive to prevent this) Downfall is he has no full button at this time and will go into an all out war over what he wants. He recently took a growing spurt and thinned out, now all his pants fall down ! Last year these jeans were tight and got sent to the attic for the next trip to goodwill, now they are all big ! lol If Kyle ever starts losing weight again try Ensure or a Wholesale places version. We have Bj's Wholesale in Delaware and they have a generic version that is cheaper by the case. I had to do this when Josh was 8, he drank one in the AM and one in the afternoon, (Chocolate)This helped a lot ! Especially with the cracker/ popcorn/ chicken nugget diet ! lol He's been getting much better at eating "real people" food, it just has to be dipped in Ranch dressing. 🙂 Do whatcha gotta do ! Enjoy your blog and sense of humor ! Thanks ! 🙂

  5. That's awesome, he totally looked boney before, now he looks great! You'll have to let us know what the actual weight gain is when you find out. Some meds are great!

  6. Anonymous

    We struggled with this to. We had such a tiny 5 yr old and she's tall so that made it worse. Agression hit and finally we found a med that worked! But like the others I was warned about weight gain. I was like ok whatever heard it before! Only this time holy cow.. With by 6 she was up 30 lbs alot for her she started at 45 lbs. BY age 8 she hit 100. Her agression was gone we thought maybe she's controling it better?? Maybe we should wear her off the meds in case we needed them when puberty hit. Took 6 mos to wean her but she lost 30 lbs over summer and keeps going down. So now she's on the skinny side again. Lol!! It's a no win. But her diet of Mac and chees (even made for her at school) and chicken nuggets don't really help

  7. Anonymous

    he looks so much better now!!! yahhh for depakote! Beth

  8. also…truth be told, maybe Mariah Carey is ALSO on Depakote. The King is not the ONLY one packing on the pounds.

  9. Anonymous

    We were in the same boat with our kiddo and his ADHD medications made it worse. Then, his psychiatrist added Risperdal, which has the side effect of increasing appetite, so now he has a "normal" appetite. We went from buying pants in slim and taking them in to now being able to buy regular waist sizes. Amazing difference just one medication can make:)

  10. This could be a story about Lily…although I didn't go back and read the linked story.

    How about that? It was hunger all along! Behavior is communication strikes again!

  11. wow. that's so good.
    Our little one has the best looking abs in our house. She eats, but is very picky. Love the blog. Thank you for writing.

  12. This is AWESOME. We too struggled with weight gain. Then, we moved, putting everyone back under the same roof and he began eating again. We saw a 15-lb weight gain in 17 months. AMAZING.