Eating Disorders seem to be taboo

I've fluctuated a lot in weight. As far as 150 pounds down to 105 at my worst.
I was literally just skin and bones and it hurt to sit on my bony butt. My GI said I looked like I was going to die soon. I don't think I was. I am like 118 pounds now. Hopefully will get to 135 soon. My average. My family always worries, they want me to get fat. I don't want to get fat. It's harder to breathe then. I definitely have osteoporosis and my muscles spasm a lot as do other parts of my body and I am anemic. The mental aspect of ibd has taken a really damaging toll on my body. I had the jpouch surgery and now I just go all of the time and the less I eat the less I go. I gotta get some help, I know.

I think any long term appetite suppression can lead to a variety of anorexia. And then it seems when that impulse (to eat) has been turned off for awhile, it can be tough to get the ball rolling and get back to a normal appetite.

But this wouldn't really be a classic eating disorder. As ImaGardner said, anorexia nervosa/bulimia are specific mental diseases that involve body image issues. I think the two are separate.

But I can certainly see how some people avoid so many foods and are nervous about what to eat they DO invoke a 'variety of anorexia'----the definition being a loss of appetite for food.

You mention the j-pouch and going all the time. How long ago did you have it done and have you seen a doctor about it? If your GI or surgeon has fobbed you off, find one who has experience in treating j-pouch issues. Pouchitis is usually treated with antibiotics.

As for eating disorders, they probably are more common in people with IBD, because the act of starving yourself and losing loads of weight does seem to trigger an eating disorder in some people. It doesn't matter if the weight loss is unintentional either, as the body can't tell the difference. Anyway, it happened to me. I don't like talking about it much, but a few years ago I did become obsessed with food, what I could and couldn't eat, calories and weight gain. Eventually I became scared by how low my weight got and made a conscious decision to eat more, I guess. At around the same time I ended up being on steroids nearly all the time. For me at least high doses of steroids enabled me to eat like a ravenous wildebeest without consequence. And then I was often on liquid, or semi-liquid, diets and getting a lot of calories through high-calorie drinks.

The steroids were literally just a mask, but they were a scarily effective mask, given how ill I became when I went off them.

Anyway, I put on weight - a bit too much really - and that knocked the eating disorder thoughts on the the head. I have a good appetite most of the time, and I can't even bring myself to starve myself to control my symptoms anymore. Particularly as I know from past experience it doesn't control the underlying disease at all, only some of the symptoms. I'd probably starve myself if I could do it without feeling hungry and empty, perhaps, but I cannot be arsed going through all that palaver again. Either way I suffer: if I don't eat, I suffer; if I do eat, I suffer. But I think far less about food if I eat enough of it than if I don't eat enough of it.

One more thing. I think orthorexia is very much a thing, much more so than classic anorexia nervosa.

Post Edited (NiceCupOfTea) : 9/9/2017 8:21:47 AM (GMT-6)

I could write a whole book on the mental health aspects.