Share review of Dr Richard Fry

Dr Richard Fry 2023-01-05 Person 5 5 0

We saw Dr Fry because our 8 year old had developed serious anxiety about going to school after the pandemic. She was waking with night terrors, complaining of stomach aches (which we took to be anxiety related) crying going into school, having tantrums, refusing to get ready and also suffering from significant separation anxiety from us to the point where she would refuse to ever be away from us, have any kind of baby sitting etc (she would either not consent or simply not sleep at all, keep herself awake until we returned). Our daughter was considerably affected by the pandemic and didn't feel she could trust school to stay open, was continuously dreaming about monsters in school or people dying. She had also become very fixated on routines, getting her to bed had become a process requiring a good 20 steps she had to undertake and one of us sitting outside the door pretty much until she fell asleep. We were able to get a private referral to Dr Fry after a recommendation. We can only talk about our specific case here, so can't make comments about others, but we were thinking based on what we had read that there were possibly ADHD or Autism related issues underlying. The process initially was for our daughter with us and the school to fill in some questionnaires which we submitted prior to a Zoom consultation with Dr Fry in which he spoke to our daughter for fifteen minutes then discussed results with us while she played in a separate room (with one of us obviously). He suggested from her questionnaire results no underlying ADHD or Autism concerns and gave us advice on how to set up goals and rewards for her as well as a staggered approach to using babysitting (even if you leave the house for an hour it's important to leave). He also suggested hair, blood and urine tests which surprised us greatly. These were VERY difficult to get our daughter to undertake - it really was a challenge and we had to battle through her reaction towards us to get them done. The results were more surprising and significant than anything behavioural. They showed food intolerances as well as vitamin and histamine deficiencies that were addressed through a change in diet and readily available tablets or food supplements that we have added to smoothies. Underlying all of this, they showed signs that she had a residual infection from years ago (we suspect whooping cough) and her body was still creating antibodies to fight the infection (PANDA is the medical term that covers this) for which Dr Fry prescribed 7 days antibiotics. Within a relatively short period of time, our daughter has become much better (not perfect, but she is 8). The antibiotics we think made the biggest difference, whilst the change in diet means she rarely complains of stomach aches (I know it might make us seem naïve, but we related them as psychosomatic where the tests picked up a food intolerance). She will now be baby sat and through the rewards and working with the school she rarely complains about going in. Dr Fry followed up on Zoom and we were resolved within 1 year and only 3 Zoom calls, the underlying medical issues seeming to be the prime cause of our daughter's anxiety. Whilst we 100% recognise this won't be the same for every case, and can't comment on how consultations might have progressed had our daughter needed more counselling, the tests Dr Fry ordered and his prescribed course of action for us could not have worked better. He explained everything very clearly and was quite collaborative with us in terms of how to move forward, making it clear what he thought, but also inviting our input into how to stage implementation of the plan based on what we thought our daughter would cope with.