A mysterious illness keeps a young boy from feeling hunger or thirst, baffling doctors and researchers around the country.

Despite feeling fine before bed, 12-year-old Landon Jones woke up one morning in October of 2013, feeling dizzy, coughing up phlegm and with no urge to eat or drink, according to the NY Daily News.

Landon had previously been treated for seizures and had previously suffered from a bacterial infection in his left lung. However, after his lung healed, his desires to eat and drink remained unresponsive. Since then, Landon has been to five different cities to identify the origin of the condition and has lost nearly 40 pounds at roughly two pounds a week.

His ability to smell and taste have not diminished. However his body is unable to tell him that he must eat or drink.

According to CBS News, Dr Mark Patterson, a pediatric neurologist at the Rochester, Minnesota Mayo Clinic, speculates that the condition originated in Landon’s hypothalamus; which regulates various body functions including body temperature, hunger, and thirst.

Patterson says, “Functions that are normally automatic for all of us have become voluntarily, or need to be voluntary in Landon’s case.”

Due to his dramatic weight loss, Landon’s parents keep high calorie and high protein snacks available. However his mother Debbie explains, “Even on the boosts and the weight gainers, he still is continuing to lose weight.”
Some of the methods Landon’s family has attempted in an effort to remind Landon to eat and drink, is to occasionally offer fast food, have Landon’s teacher gesture for him to take a drink during class, and to have Landon’s father, Michael, sit with him at every meal to encourage him to eat and drink.

The mystery surrounding the onset and treatment of Landon’s unusual illness has cost the Jones family their savings, leaving them to resort to donation bins in local shops.

There is a chance that Landon will be accepted to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, which “takes on a number of extremely rare cases every year.” If Landon does not gain weight soon, he will be tube-fed with the tube directly inserted in his abdomen. The boy has not only lost weight and his awareness of hunger and thirst, but he has also become withdrawn and lethargic.

The Jones family is searching for similar cases and is asking anyone with insight to contact them at hawkeyext@cfu.net.