Medical mystery: Iowa boy, 12, has no urge to eat, drink

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 28, ARMENPRESS: Michael and Debbie Jones struggle to find assistance for their son Landon, 12, who is constantly losing weight due to an apparent hypothalamic dysfunction which started just over a year ago. Landon has lost 35 pounds and has to constantly be reminded to eat or drink because he's lost all feelings of hunger or thirst, Armenpress reports citing The Des Moines Register.

It all began when Landon woke the morning of Oct. 14, 2013, suddenly having lost all sense of hunger and thirst. He was dizzy nearly to the point of passing out. His chest was clogged with phlegm that he kept coughing up.

The previous day seemed normal. Landon had been riding his bicycle and devoured a bowl of ice cream and slices of pizza.

"Something happened in the middle of the night," Michael said, "and he woke up this way, and it hasn't stopped."

An eventual chest X-ray revealed a bacterial infection in Landon's left lung that soon was eradicated.

But that was just the beginning of a gantlet of doctors' appointments and medical tests in the last year that have taken the family to five cities — their local pediatrician in Waterloo; Cedar Rapids; Des Moines; Madison, Wis.; and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. — in a frustrating quest for clear answers and a cure.

Landon now is being considered for an appointment at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., which examine a relative handful of the rarest cases annually.

He began to shed 2 pounds per week last fall and has withered from his former weight of 104 pounds to a gaunt, tenuous 68.4 pounds.

Michael and Debbie, married 14 years, have battled every ounce of the way in a futile effort to pack pounds back on their oldest son.