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Related: About this forumRisk of Adult Anxiety Seen in Children’s Stomachaches
Children with chronic stomach pains are at high risk for anxiety disorders in adolescence and young adulthood, a new study has found, suggesting that parents may wish to have their children evaluated at some point for anxiety.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University tracked 332 children with recurring stomachaches that could not be traced to a physical cause so-called functional abdominal pain comparing them as they reached young adulthood with 147 children who had never had such stomachaches.
About half the teenagers and young adults who had had functional abdominal pain as children developed an anxiety disorder at some point, compared with 20 percent of the control group, the researchers found. The vulnerability to anxiety persisted into adulthood even if the pain had disappeared, although the risk was highest if the pain continued.
Forty percent of the children with functional abdominal pain went on to experience depression, compared with 16 percent of those who had never had these stomachaches.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/risk-of-adult-anxiety-seen-in-childrens-stomachaches/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130812&_r=0
Sanity Claws
(21,840 posts)Adult sufferers of migraine headaches often had undiagnosed stomach migraines. I was one of those kids.
I wanted to point this out in case people think the solution is simply to give antidepressants to kids to prevent anxiety.
Nay
(12,051 posts)riddled with anxiety in my teens and 20's.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)stomach aches.
I've grown up to be not at all anxious about things, to the point where I get very impatient with those who are that way. Not a nice trait, I know.
In my case, I think the cause was in my dysfunctional family at the time, and when things changed and became more functional, the stomach aches went away.
MineralMan
(146,255 posts)are expressions of their existing anxiety. That's the other conclusion that might be drawn, logically.