# does anyone suffer from anorexia/bullimia bc of ibs?



## 19988

i was wondering if anyone has an eating disorder BECAUSE of ibs..unfortunately i doi mean, you plan your whole entire day on what you eat, when you eat, how much you eat, and WHERE you eat...its horrible&now my minds messed up because im constantly anxious and worried about not only ibs but my weight tooi feel like if i starve myself to the skinniest i can get [which is 82lbs] then i wont have to sh*t alot and ill finally feel normal


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## Kathleen M.

Unfortunately it appears that long periods of starvation make the GI track work worse, not better.You may be setting yourself up for more problems with the plan (not to mention your heart could stop and you can die).Food fears are common with IBSers.Please get some counseling and help before you do something that damages yourself permanently.K.


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## sazzy

HeyaI went through a tough time a couple of years ago and started to starve myself. I did this for about 6 months. I thought that if i was thin all my problems would go away, i thought i'd be pretty, popular and wouldn't suffer from ibs any more. It didn't work that way, as i lost weight i didn't see myself as pretty, more people were paying attention to me but not because they liked me, they looked at me because i was scarily thin and My ibs got worse. It all came to a head one day when i went horse riding with my friend, the horse i was riding i hadn't ridden for a while he was very strong but last time i rode him before my extreme weight loss i found it easy enough but this time i wasn't physically strong enough to do it, he took advantage and i ended up falling off. After just 1 hour i was exhausted and when i got off all i wanted to do was sleep. I decided then i needed help, i got my mum to book an appointment with the doctor and it turns out i was about 90 lbs (about 40 lbs under the correct weight for my height). I also had councelling to help me with my anxiety and to show me that in fact i wasn't ugly and the people that were "popular" were popular for all the wrong reasons, the lady who helped me also helped me with my ibs as she taught me that i'm not on my own and that there's morte things to life than constantly worrying about ibs. Since then i've put on weight and never want to get that way again, it didn't change anything for me, in fact it made it worse. I'm still concious of my weight and occasionally drop under but nowadays when i do, i worry about putting it on not getting more off. Annorexia is not the answer and is not even a temporary soultion, it made me so unhappy and i never had enough strength to do the things i love. Eating healthy will help you more and you'll learn to live with it, never think that anoreixa is a soltuion. It isn't and will make your problems worse, it just isn't worth it.


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## Guest

hugs,you got to get urself a decent food plan, stick to it and find a hobby to enjoy if ur being stuck in, i have had the worst year of my life with my ibs. now after chatting with peopleon here im finally getting somewhere.we are here to help. keep us posted


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## 16212

HIi got ibs when i was in school (8th grade) and i thought that if i didn't eat anything before or during school i wouldn't have to use the bathroom there. this continued until summer vacation and i was home so i ate more, and then i went back to school for 9th grade and started having diarrhea every day at school again so i stopped eating again, and i would lie and bring a lunch to school and hide it in my backpack so my parents didn't know what was going on. i missed a lot of school that year but i decided to try again for 10th grade, my mom would make me a very healthy lunch with foods that wouldnt make me sick, but it stopped working and i was losing so much weight i was exhausted. i got down to 80 some pounds, (i was soooo skinny that my hip bone stuck out so much that it rubbed on my pants and i started getting a hole through my skin, and it went very deep) thats when i decided to tell my mom what had been going on and that i couldn't go to school anymore because no one there understood and everyone thought that it was all in my head. I lost so much weight that now when i look at pictures from then, i am so horrified and i cry sometimes. I started getting homeschooled and i home every day and i have gained back weight. Starving yourself is not the way to go, it doesn't work for whatever reason. I am so happy i found this group, i can relate to so many wonderful people here.


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## 17116

Hi, new to the forum and your story sounds alot like me! Are you still homeschooled? I am right now and its helping alot but my dad dosn't like the idea so much. What do your parents think about it?


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## Lindsay Nicole

i am not positive that my IBS is result of my ED but i started getting my severe symptoms when i was discharged from ip and its been a hell of a trip ever since. how are you dealing with it?


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## tltrull

Starving yourself and getting skinny does nothing for IBS....It actually can make things alot worse. You dont stop going to the bathroom just because you are empty, you will pass water, and the cramping is just as painful.I wasnt anorexic, I mean I didnt think I was fat or anything, but I stopped eating most days because I wanted to be able to go out and do things. It got to the point where I couldn do my own grocery shopping. Without realizing it I went from 86lbs 5'2"(normal or me, high metabolism) to 78lbs. I know it doesnt seem like I lost alot, but I really couldnt afford to lose it, as I was too thin to begin with. I started having kidney pain, and I could barely get out of bed most days. So much for going out! Trust me, it did not make anything better, it actually got worse, and thats when I finally went to the GI and found out I had IBS. Since I have been on my meds(Lotronex, Pamine, Elavil) I am actually the total opposite, I am up to 126lbs!! Hard to believe I now need to lose some weight, so I had to get a new AD, since it is Elavil making me gain so much. I am now trying Cymbalta instead since it has a constipating effect and some pain control like the Elavil, but without all of the weight gain. I dont plan on losing it all, just enough to be at my ideal weight, or close enough to be at a healthy weight. I have a very small frame, and am carrying too much weight on it...I weighed this much when I had my 1st child!


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## Bem

Hi I'm new [name's emilie]I'm 15 and i've been looking so hard for somebody to understand how i feel.I developed anorexia after a while of me being obsesed with my weight. when my symptoms of IBS [haven't been TRULY diagnosed...but it's all there. i've been having C since 4 years old.] got worse this past year I started mistaking my bloating all for fat. I was about 120 at 5'5'' and now i'm at 107. not alot of weight loss, but that's becuase i had a l ot of people looking out for me, and i was constantly fighting wether or not to keep starving, or be healthy, starve, or be healthy. It's absolutely TAKEN OVER MY LIFE. I had no energy for that year, lost friends, scared my family, felt dead, lost my period. And i still do, but i'm in counseling and getting a lot of support.The problem in highschool [i'm a juinor] is that girls think anorexia is for attention, or it's not always true. But they don't know how it feels to wake up every $$$$$$ing day and WANT to starve, knowing damn well who it's going to hurt and how bad it is. Then wake up the next day and say "i'm going to eat better, for me." then by noon you want to throw up becuase you had breakfast.I'm doing everything i can to help myself. I don't eat wheat or dairy becuase i know it makes everything worse, i've been to the hospital twice for paralyzed bowel, i eat small meals [which is hard for me becuase when i was young i could eat SO MUCH. lol], i've got depression, anxiety, i'm obsessed with losing weight but nobody thinks it's serious becuase i'm not 75 $$$$$$ing pounds. I know this is long and boring, but it's my life now. And it's ruined becuase of anorexia. I know starving makes the whole cycle worse, but i was desperate for answers. Now i'm even more desperate becuase i'm not sure i can fix this. i look pregnant when i eat. literally, i look like i could pop a baby out any second. I just want answers. And i want people to understand.Is that so much to ask for?


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## sazzy

Heya BemI know anorexia is hard. Luckily I wasn't bad for very long, and when I realised it was going to start ruining my life very soon I soon got really tough on myself. I think people have a go at others with problems, because they immediately associate problems with labeling i.e when you cut you're emo, when you don't eat it means you want to be plastic etc etc, people don't realise that they've just been brain washed into thinking that and that there's a lot of people out there who are genuinely depressed, it isn't easy to get people to see it other ways. When I lost a load of weight even some of my friends fell out with me, for what? because I had problems. My best friend sometimes cuts, and people will say to my face that she's an emo. I'll soon put them straight, because I know she's not attention seeking but others reckon she is. What you have to do though, is ignore what others think and get yourself some will power. Councelling and talking to your family really helps but at the end of the day it's you that needs to be brave and take that first step onto the road of recovery, yeah I know how cheesy that sounds lol, but it will get easier once you've completely convinced yourself that you're going to do it. There's so many things being healthy does for you, being under weight upsets your brain and actually distorts your view of yourself and makes you think you're fatter than you are. Once you start feeding your body properly, you won't get such distorted images and it'll all help.Hope you start getting better soon.


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## Severely Suffering Snapett

Anorexia was what started off my IBS I believe. Not just the fact that I was eating as little as possible but the whole stress of not lossing weight quick enough probably brought it on too. I remember I used to have such trouble with my digestive system. It was the biggest mistake of my life trying to loose weight when I wasn't even fat. But when your "best friend" is telling you that you are fat it is hard to ignore because you believe everything they say.







When people finally got through to me and I realised what I was doing to my self it was too late the damage was already done. I didn't understand what was happening to me at that moment in time until I was told about IBS. But even though I wanted to eat every time I put food to my lips I felt like being sick. Oh it was horrible. I then forced my self to gain weight and now I'm at an ok weight but still sometimes the smell of food makes me sick.


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## Brian0003

I'm a guy and even I have some problems too.I purposefully don't eat meals or avoid eats foods because I know that about 2-3 days later its going to be a major pain getting them out.It got really bad for me in High School, I went down from 140 punds to 120 pounds during the swim season because I wasn't eating enough.I'm not sure if I actually had a eating disorder though, I just avoided food that I knew I would have trouble pushing out.


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## 15226

Ugh. I deff. have problems eating, too. I can't quite say that I have an eating disorder, but eating sucks mucho for me. If there is anything big coming up, or whatever, I usually don't eat very much. Same goes during the school year. I don't want to eat and feel sick and be in pain all day, but that usually happens no matter what, so blah. It's not that I just don't want to eat, it's more that I really can't eat. If I could eat whatever I wanted, whenever, I would totally do so. It kinda sucks when you have to sit there and watch your boyfriend eat honey bbq wings and pizza all the time. :\ I feel so nauseated, full and gross all the time that just putting food in my mouth makes me almost throw up. I used to be like 115 lbs(I've always been tinyish), and now I'm down to around 102, because I can't eat. Most of that lately has been because of this gastritis/ulcer that I have. I had to go to the ER, because everything I ate or drank, gave me intense pain and almost always came back up. Yet lately I have really been trying to force myself to eat, because it's probably better that I have a full stomach, even if it messes me up. I've been going the route of the 5 small meals a day thing. Although most of the time these meals consist of crackers and pudding, dry cereal and yogurt, I have been experimenting with different stuff that I think is easy to get down, and doesn't make you feel horrible. Like lately for dinner I have been making plain bagels with grilled chicken on them. They taste really good, and I even though I have trouble finishing them, they don't make me feel as sick. :] And for the days that I can't eat at all, I resort to drinking Ensure. But yeah, eating is sucky for me, too.


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## waiting to live again

Hi Bem:I'm so glad that you shared your story because I thought that my IBS had nothing to do with an eating disorder. I am neither anorexic or bulimic, but I use my IBS to control my anxiety because I constantly binge and purge. There was a time when I controlled my IBS symptoms by only eating solid foods on the weekend and by drinking only Ensure on weekdays, when I had to work. I used to take a laxative on Sunday night after binge eating since Friday afternoon and I could not see the pattern that I was setting up for my self. My therapist has helped me to see that I binge and purge in order to deal with an anxiety problem that I have had since I was a child. I only noticed that the bulimics and I were essentially doing the same thing when I watched that show Intervention on t.v. and saw how much money one young bulimic spent on food, only to purge all of the food later on. I was not in control of my IBS and have had trouble being in control of my life all of my life. Therapy gets really tough when I see that I have unresolved control issues that have manifested themselves in what I feel are pointless, cyclical rituals that make me sicker mentally and physically. Again, thank you for posting, 'cause reading what you wrote made me look at my own life.


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## GreenDay12

I am the same way. Before i go out i always throw up as much as i can. its awful. I dont know what to do...just poseted something about it actually.


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