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Chris @kodiak.app

The inpatient program that I have experience with - we were basically treating lack-of-interest ARFID - you find something that the kid enjoys (for us, it was watching a DVD of Super Why, but other kids like to play with toys) and for 30 minutes, 3 times a day, they're in a room where...

aug 31, 2025, 11:04 pm • 0 0

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Chris @kodiak.app

if they take a bite, they get to do the fun activity for a bit, and if they don't, then everyone just sits there calmly, and if the kid gets out of their chair, you gently return them to it. It was a four-week program; the first week, a therapist is alone in the room, and parents observe through...

aug 31, 2025, 11:04 pm • 0 0 • view
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Chris @kodiak.app

a one-way mirror; next week, parents are in the room while therapist does the feeding; third week, parents do the feeding with the therapist in the room; fourth week, parents feed while therapist watches from the observation room. It went really well for us, but some of the families we met...

aug 31, 2025, 11:04 pm • 0 0 • view
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Chris @kodiak.app

were on their fourth or fifth stay - things would get better for a while, and then they'd get worse. Another thing we learned is that some kids with ARFID are basically on the verge of dehydration all the time - if they start vomiting you basically have 6 hours to get them to...

aug 31, 2025, 11:04 pm • 0 0 • view
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Chris @kodiak.app

keep some fluids down, or you're in the hospital for IV hydration. The program also starts with conversations with a psychiatrist, and my impression is that there's a lot more types of therapy they can also use if there's an underlying cause other than "they're never hungry and food is boring."

aug 31, 2025, 11:04 pm • 0 0 • view
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Chris @kodiak.app

(We were on the very border of "ARFID has a name" so we didn't get an official ARFID diagnosis, but if it had been a few years later it's pretty clear we would have.)

aug 31, 2025, 11:05 pm • 0 0 • view