This month’s blog is difficult for me to write down, I guess admitting to an eating disorder is something that I was always going to struggle with, certainly when I began to read back my blog it reminded me of the hole I’ve dug for myself, however, after spending time researching for this month’s blog and the therapy I’m receiving I am now being to understand why eating disorders are prevent in the IBD community.
So, what’s the link between IBD and eating disorders?
Research, though limited, suggests an overlap between IBD and eating disorders. The few available studies show that IBD may indeed play a role in eating disorder development and illness. This research describes the relationship between the two conditions as reciprocal—they affect and are affected by each other. The presence of IBD can complicate illness and recovery from an eating disorder and vice versa.
The experience of physical discomfort when eating can also heighten anxiety or fear at mealtimes, and the unpredictable nature of IBD can spark a desire to limit intake in an effort to limit IBD symptoms. Doing so may provide an illusory sense of control around food, or a general means to cope with the stress of a debilitating gastrointestinal illness.
My own experience of disordered eating began like most people with Crohns or colitis, when having a flare up of the disease causes one to immediately restrict the food intake, as the pain of eating is too much. This of course leads to severe weight loss, which in turn can lead to other complication; I found the most challenging aspect of my weight loss (I’m 6ft `2 and weighed just 10 stone at my lowest point) were the unintended comments from friends and family,…you’ve hardly touch your dinner, if you keep going on they’ll be nothing left of you. You look really skinny, I’m so jealous!
Obviously, these comments hurt but I have to remind myself that friends and family have no idea of the reasons behind the dramatic weight loss. Although my eating disorder may have its origins in the many flare-ups over the years, I believe mine started when I began controlling my Crohns by using diet Specifically, the LOFFLEX diet. I’m aware controlling IBD with diet is still a contentious issue for many consultants and patients alike, for me it isn’t a contentious issue at all, if I eat, chicken, white rice, carrots, prawns, rice cakes rice milk and oven chips, my Crohns is under control (confirmed via Ibdoc https://www.alphalabs.co.uk/bi-ibdoc) If I go off my diet. My Calprotectin levels shoot up dramatically and I begin to feel unwell.
So back to my diet, my saviour and my foe, no matter how hard I’ve tried over the last 10 years to introduce new foods into my diet, I’ve failed miserably, which then leads to me being self-critical, and my inner voice screaming: why can’t you just stick to the diet? Why can’t you just try the introductions of new foods, what fool would knowingly eat foods that will cause your Crohns to flare?
I now realise I have developed a full on eating disorder, I regularly binge on foods at weekends that make me feel unwell, and honestly I don’t even enjoy the foods I’m binging on, I often eat secretly in the kitchen and feel like a fool when I get “caught’ in the act, which is not only hard to swallow, (pun intended) but I now understand it’s manifestation in other parts of my life, particularly when I have a shopping trolley full of my foods for the week, chicken, whole sale boxes full of rice cakes and oven chips, I often imagine some random person making derogatory comments on the contents of my shopping trolley, so I’m in and out quick, that’s a bit mad, isn’t it?
I’m so grateful for the therapy I receive for my eating disorder; the therapy has put my internal voice and conversations into context, and helped my councillor Identify and labels my disorder as ARFID. ARFID stands for: avoidance restrictive food intake disorder and it’s a relatively new eating disorder diagnosis Previously coined “Selective Eating”, it involves limitations and/or restrictions around food, particularly around the intake of certain types of food or certain amounts.
Unlike other eating disorder diagnoses (like Anorexia, Bulimia or Binge Eating Disorder) it doesn’t typically involve distress around body image or a pursuit of thinness. Rather, it is classified by a rejection of certain foods often due to sensitivity in taste, texture, smell, appearance or temperature. Someone suffering with ARFID may struggle with socialising and eating around others, and suffer from serious nutritional deficiencies, weight loss in adults and stunted growth in children.
If you can identify with some of the themes in this blog, don’t beat yourself up! We have enough to deal with managing our IBD physically and mentally daily, remember we didn’t ask for this disease, it’s not our fault IBD makes us feel less than. There is help out there too, I’ll leave this blog with links to various organisations that can help.
https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/support-services/helplines
https://eating-disorders.org.uk/
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