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My 13-year old daughter has recently developed severe night ...
Sent to Health Experts May 14 12:18 PM

My 13-year old daughter has recently developed severe night fears. What can we do to alleviate this problem?

 

Optional Information:
Female, Age: 13, California

Already Tried:
reassurance, night lights, talking about the fear, making sure the house is locked down tight

Customer (name blocked for privacy)
Reply
May 15 11:01 AM (11 minutes and 1 second later)
         
No, she is not scared any other time. Two months ago, a racoon came into the house through the dog door and ended upstairs in her sister's room. The dogs were barking and frantically trying to get to the coon, which managed to run back downstairs and out the door. We cleaned up the mess, locked the utility room door, as well as the dog door and reassured everyone that it could not get in again. Since that night, we make sure that, as soon as the sun goes down, both doors are closed. Now she is constantly terrified, sometimes screaming and pounding on the wall so someone will come into her room since she is too terrified to get out of bed. She is not taking any medication, has had to have one of her sister's sleep in her twin bed with her or on her floor most nights, has all her lights on and keeps her door closed "just in case". Nothing works and she is steadily getting more terrified. We really are at wit's end and do not know what else to do. Everyone in the house has broken sleep at night because of her fears.
Answer
May 15 11:26 AM (24 minutes and 43 seconds later)
         
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Thank you for that informaton and this is a very severe case of trauma induced fear and with all that you have tried and her still getting worse I feel two things need to be done. First you need to have her seen by her pediatrition to see if they feel she should be started on a low dose anti-anxiety medication and also consider some couseling to help her work through her fears. It can take awhile for an incident such as this to worj through in her mind and sometimes it does take therapy and medication combined and while I am not a big fan of medication for children with all that you state and this being so severe I do feel that is what it is going to take to allow her to work through her fears caused by this incident. Also you might want to consider some Natural calming suppliments as well to see if this will help such as Black Cohosh and Chamomille teas since they are much safer but most definately you do need to talk with her pediatrician as to how they feel the best way to proceed will be. A short term low dose anti-anxiety medication may allow her to not have so much anxiety at night and once she is able to get through a week or two in a more relaxed state of mind the better she will be able to address her fears in a way that will not cause as much anxiety. Please do let me know if you have any other questions but I do feel since this is such a severe case of anxiety this would be the best route to take as now with all of you in the house being stressed as well she can feel this and it most likely causes even more anxiety. She needs to be able to address her fears and work through them and I feel this would be the best way for her to be able to confront and talk about her fears that the incident has caused.


*Cheryl K* Please click the "ACCEPT" button
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