Jolanda, everybody deals with stress differently,

Dont know why you try to discredit doctors, by you saying "being quite easy to work work out" doctors are performing miracles all the time.
obviously the symptoms your daughter had where from the way she handles stress. maybe you should take her to learn how to meditate

mycoplasma is only a mild infection. dont believe it causes depression or severe pain in joints.

Maybe your daughter being 52 kgs and 5ft was advised to loose a couple of kilos to help with her joint pain. if she continues of her percentage of growth she would be over 65 kgs when 18 years old and if she has totally developed at 12 <which I doubt> and doesnt grow taller this would not really be a healthy range. the doctors where probably trying to avoid this. so I doubt they were "clutching at staws" instead they where probably trying to help your daughter.

Why you say "Compliments of the Department of Education" its because of the way your daughter handles stress. you need to help her handle stress in better ways. meditate, yoga, etc.

Girls are NOT fully developed at 12. I am sure she has grown since that time , right Jolanda.

Tootsie. It's amazing how if I say that the Doctors didn't know what was wrong with her you say I am discrediting Doctors. They didn't know, don’t you get Tootsie? They don't know everything. It took them 4 years to disagnose her.

Bodies handle stress the way that they handle stress and it is an automatic reaction, more often than not it cannot be helped. Stress is one of the biggest problems that the human race faces as it directly impacts on our immune system and our health and triggers disease. My daughter was placed under the care of a team of pain specialists at the children's hospital and psychologists but how can they help if they cannot do anything about those that are creating the problems that cause the reaction and symptoms.

It’s amazing how people always put the responsibility on the victim. If a child is being victimized and it is causing her body stress it shouldn’t be the child’s responsibility to accept the treatment and just learn strategies to cope with the stress. What about the responsibility of those that are causing the stress to stop harming children? How you protect those that harm children is truly bizarre.

By fully developed I don’t mean that she may not grow a couple of more inches in height. At 5ft and 52 kilos you are by no means overweight. I think that often when doctors don’t know what is wrong with people they just blame their weight.

Mycoplasma is more than just a minor disease what it did to my daughter was crippling.

Jolanda you said
1.My daughter and I both looked at each other and thought. Ridiculous.
2.I would have thought that would have been quite easy to work out.
3.Maybe they were just clutching at straws
4.at first they didn't know what they were talking about but I insisted that it must be something as what was happening to my daughter was not normal.
5.Why they dont want to discuss it, is beyond me
6. I think that often when doctors don’t know what is wrong with people they just blame their weight.

you said they didnt know what they where talking about. this comment is discrediting. all your comments are discrediting to your doctors.
I dont believe mycoplasma was crippling your daughter, I think this is a slight exagerration to paint a picture you want to paint for your case. maybe they where growing pains! was she ever hospitalised, or missed a part of school year, stopped playing sport etc.

RE being a victim. this is only in your eyes nothing has been proven that DET did anything. DET didnt harm your child.

innocent until proven guilty. that is everybody right. respect it!

the best thing you could have not for your children is

Accentuate the positive, Eliminate the negative

not the opposite.
this will affect your children for ever, time will tell.

I remember some criticism about the CSIRO diet which promotes several servings of meat a week being supported by the meat industry. Of course that created debate from dieticians that promote less meat and dairy and more fruit and vegetables. Of course the diet industry is huge and lucrative so of course they are all going to peddle their own wares and try and convince people theirs is the best method to lose weight. In this age of choice, is this unreasonable? I think that the Healthy Food Pyramid can still be accessed on a government site and maybe the government should be pushing this a bit more.

I also have the impression that one of the problems we have with identifying overweight and obesity is that there are so many of us who are overweight or obese. This means that when we compare ourselves to others, we think that we are OK just because we are not as fat as some. I know that I am thinner than most women my age, but my BMI is 25.5 which is slightly overweight. When we see people who fit into the average range BMI, they appear to be thin. This also refers to children and teenagers.

I also wonder about whether weight has become more of a problem with teenagers since they have been able to access their Youth Allowance at 16. They have their own money and no parents to watch what it is being spent on.

Hi Jolanda,

did you daughter,

1. Miss any school
2. Miss any sporting activities
3. was she hospitalised

with this crippling disorder.

Why dont you answer the questions.

The fat brigade is going overboard- have you heard of th plans to ban meatpies at the footy? I think that this is as ridiculous as banning sausage sizzles for fund raising. It won’t do anything to stop people from consuming too much fat.

Education is of uttermost importance. The anti-tobacco propaganda has been a success, now we need to be made aware of the averse effects of too much fat and sugar in our diets.

Just a quick remark, I am not sure I understand why Jolanda is being questioned so much about her daughter’s problems- I thought that everybody knew that our medical system is not infallible. I’m not going into details, but to secure proper treatment for my son has been no less than an epic mission.

Mycoplasma can be a minor thing in some cases, but in other cases it can cause a wide variety of diseases because there are many species of mycoplasma and some can indeed cause arthritis, asthma, chronic fatigue and in some cases even acute fatal illness.

I do think it is a good suggestion that one of the posters made for a child suffering from stress to take part in some relaxation therapy of some kind. The skills one will learn, to cope with stress, to learn how to relax, can be highly beneficial throughout one’s lifetime. Stress can have a disasterous effect on our body and mind.