The boy who can't eat a single crumb

Published on Friday 16 January 2009 09:00

IN almost every sense he is a normal seven-year-old boy. He plays football, swims and goes to school every day, but there is one major difference separating Wester Hailes youngster Tyler Mill from his friends – food has never passed his lips.

Ever since his birth the youngster – who is known to friends and family as TJ – has refused food, and relies on a tube to feed him every night.

His mother, Arlene Mill, 41, told today how she has spent years attempting to find a solution.

She is hoping that by highlighting his case, she may finally find the key to persuading her son to eat.

The full-time mother said that after a series of tests, medics confirmed the problem was entirely psychological.

"There isn't really anything we haven't tried," said Ms Mill, a single mother who lives with Tyler and his older sister Robin, 12, in Hailesland Gardens.

"We've been to so many doctors and psychologists, tried forcing him to eat, breaking things up – I always thought he would just snap out of it and eat, but he never has."

She added: "I just hope for the day he'll decide to eat and get on with it, but it hasn't happened yet.

"There's no problem with the swallowing mechanism, it's all in his head."

For years Tyler had a tube going into his nose to feed him, but Ms Mill along with medical experts opted for a night-feed machine, which means he does not have to eat throughout the day with the machine supplying him with high-fibre, high calorie milk during the night.

They have even tried to reduce the amount of food the boy gets in the hope that the hunger will trigger an appetite to eat, but this never works and Tyler – who is already small for his age – loses even more weight.

She added: "We've now been told the best thing to do is to sit food in front of him and if he fancies it he can have an attempt.

"Pressuring him has never worked and has an adverse affect, he just runs away from the table.

"He does try though, but when he gets things into his mouth he just vomits. We used to try and make a big thing of it when he tried things.

"He seems to go for food with rich smells, like he often takes the inside of garlic bread into his mouth. He also once took a tiny corner of a Milky Bar."

Ensuring the health of her youngest child dominates her life, and can often keep her up throughout the night, particularly if something goes wrong with the night feeding machine, provided for her along with supplies of special milk and other equipment by NHS Lothian.

"It goes on as he's going to bed at night and you can set how much he gets," she said.

"An alarm goes off if anything goes wrong. Even if there's a kink in the tube or if it comes loose or if he rolls over it, you go in and there's milk all over the quilts.

"It's hard but we're both completely used to it and just get on with it.

"Our whole lives revolve around it. It's been like that since day one when he wouldn't take bottles.

"He used to scream and scream but it wasn't because he wanted his bottle – it's because he didn't. After that solids were a no go."

Ms Mill has always had a hunch Tyler's psychological block stems from the moment he was born, when meconium aspiration occurred – a problem where a baby inhales its stools causing great distress and in Tyler's case, a collapsed lung.

However, Dr Gopi Menon, honorary clinical senior lecturer at Edinburgh University's School of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, told the Evening News this was extremely unlikely to be the cause.

Tyler, meanwhile, does not appear to care what other people say or think about his eating habits. His older sisters Emma, 17, and 24-year-old Kirsty, who have both left home – have often tried their own techniques of coaxing him to eat.

At school he sits with friends at dinner time and has a very small amount to drink. Staff at Murrayburn Primary have been informed of his condition – which does not have an official name – and can put food out for him to try if he wants.

"He's a bit smaller but completely normal, he goes swimming and plays football," Ms Mill said.

She added: "I'm worried that he will never be able to appreciate or enjoy food. If we want to go on holiday we have to take a big trunk with a tube to feed him through.

"If we go to a restaurant, up until recently we'd have to take some form of entertainment for him.

"Sometimes I look at him and think it's OK, he's surviving just now, but it would be so good to know that others have been in this situation and come out of it.

"I will keep trying because you have to, don't you, and one day it'll hopefully change."

HARD TO DIGEST

STRICT intervention is the only way to coax stubborn children into better eating habits, a leading child consultant has said.

Dr Gillian Harris, who works with children with eating disorders up to the age of 11, said after the age of one the chances of them choosing to eat of their own accord diminished.

She did offer some hope to Ms Mill, however, stressing that as a child matures, it may be that social circumstances lead them to force themselves to eat as they reach their teenage years.

She said: "After the age of one, if they aren't used to having something in their mouth, then they won't take it at all. This is where intervention should come in."

Dr Harris, who is based in Birmingham Children's Hospital, added that tube feeding should be a last resort.

"You don't want the brain or the body to become dependent on it," she added.

"There are specialists out there. It could be that she (Ms Mill) needs to keep knocking on doors until she finds someone, although having said that, there are very few right doors for this."