That morning, he received a squirt of oxytocin. That day, he brought home an unfinished lunch (about a 40% portion was unfinished)! Also notable was that he did not ask for an afternoon snack that day, something that had never happened before. It was a Friday and we all went out to dinner that evening to our neighborhood Korean restaurant and Sasha ordered Bibimbop, his favorite dish. To our surprise, he ate only half of his dinner, bringing the rest home as leftovers! I queried him about why he didn't finish his food and he simply said that he was already full. I was starting to suspect that something was really different with Sasha's appetite since he was leaving food unfinished- maybe he was not feeling well? Or maybe he had snuck some food during some other time during the day to explain what appeared to be his decreased appetite? Or maybe the oxytocin was actually working now? I didn't know what explanation to give but I couldn't help but observe that his eating pattern was notably different.
After dinner, we took a walk and enjoyed the mild weather and went home to play some cards. At around 9 pm, he asked to have some dessert and since he hadn't eaten that much during the day (as far as I could tell), I agreed to go out for some frozen yogurt. We went up to our regular frozen yogurt shop and Sasha ordered (his usual) fat-free/sugar-free child-sized cup of frozen yogurt. He LOVED getting frozen yogurt and that night it was a particularly good flavor, chocolate peanut butter. To my shock, Sasha got about half-way through the dessert and stopped eating. He then said to me, "I'm full now. I want to throw the rest away." He said it calmly and matter-of-factly. I asked him if there was a problem with the yogurt and he reassured me that it was "delicious" but that he was "done."
SAY, WHAT?!
To make the situation more dramatic, he kept looking for a garbage can to deposit his trash but we were walking in a residential neighborhood and nobody's trash cans were accessible... Sasha ended up having to hold the half-eaten cup of frozen yogurt (which was melting by now) all the way back home to dispose it in our trash can (AND HE NEVER TOOK ANOTHER BITE OF IT DURING THE 15 MINUTE WALK HOME!!!)
After the half-eaten frozen yogurt incident (we'll call it HEFY, for short), I was convinced that something was different since he had always finished all of his food, asked for snacks and eaten his snacks at every opportunity, and ALWAYS scraped his frozen yogurt cup clean down to the last drop before oxytocin. Other reoccurring, regular changes after June 24 that we noticed include:
1. Bringing home unfinished food from lunch
2. Leaving food unfinished on his plate
3. No longer being the first to finish his meals- eating more slowly after oxytocin
4. No longer getting into arguments and power struggles over food with us (his parents)
Today marked another remarkable change in his behavior. Again, he received his oxytocin dose in the morning and he was only minimally hungry at breakfast (8am) and left half of it untouched. We were starting to get used to his smaller appetite but we didn't expect to see what we saw later in the morning. At 10:15, his sister asked me to give her a snack. Normally, if anyone in the household ate something, Sasha would jump at the opportunity to ask for food for himself as well. After she asked for a mid-morning snack. I cringed and braced myself for his inevitable request for a snack and prepared myself for a possible negotiation and argument. To my shock, the request never came from Sasha! Instead, he just sat back and watched her decide on her snack and never said a word about wanting one for himself! When I asked him about it later, he told me that he didn't ask for a snack at that time because he "wasn't hungry and didn't need a snack."
These changes to his appetite and obsession with food and hunger have been documented for only 2 weeks (so far) but what a spectacular 2 weeks it has been! The decrease in his appetite, the decrease in his hyper-focus on food, the absence of emotional meltdowns due to arguments about food, and the absence of catching him with stolen food... these things alone have provided incredible relief and have boosted my mood and happiness quotient to immeasurable levels! But oxytocin has done more than just normalize his appetite and food seeking behaviors- I believe that oxytocin has also provided Sasha with an increased desire to interact with his peers!
More on oxytocin and the improvement of his social motivation in my next posting...
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