Some Signs of Eating Disorders

I hope you are all following the hashtag NEDAwareness because you will find the stories of so many inspirational patients who have suffered through or are suffering from eating disorders.

These illnesses are near and dear to my heart as I have seen friends suffer through it and even die from it.

Now that you are hopefully familiar with the most common types of eating disorders. (If not click here)....let's discuss some of the signs of eating disorders. 

Its important to realize that most people with eating disorders may not exhibit the classical symptoms that I have described below. What makes it even more difficult - is most patients will deny their symptoms and often do things in hiding. This group of disorders is often the hardest to diagnose.

Symptoms of eating disorders vary between individuals and in severity.

The common signs of Anorexia Nervosa (AN) include:

• Significant weight loss 
• Don't forget that there are different severities to AN, and not every person is underweight

• A preoccupation with food 
• Some patients with AN love talking about food and taking pictures of food. I had one patient who loved cooking a great deal of food for others but never eating it herself

• Never feeling hungry

• Scheduling social events that are not related to food
• I had one friend who would never be present for the dinner part of a dinner party, but would always appear afterwards for drinks or dancing. Every time we would invite her for dinner, she would never be present and the times that she was - she would say he had eaten already.

• Avoiding mealtime

• Dissatisfaction with their body at all times
• Even if they appear thin to the world, in the their mind they are overweight. They often will call themselves "fat" when they clearly are the opposite.

• Depressed mood +/- suicidal intent
• There is a strong association between all eating disorders and suicide attempts and self-mutilation (i.e. cutting one's wrists, etc.) 

The common signs of Bulimia include:

• Frequent trips to the bathroom after meals

• Evidence that someone is vomiting often (the smell of vomit or presence of vomit in different areas)
• I had a patient who would store her vomit in a cup or tupperware when she had no access to a toilet. Its really amazing the lengths that people will go through to purge.

• Presence of empty packages of diuretics or laxatives
• If you do not have a medical condition that calls for either of these, there is no reason that they should be in one's home really.

• Frequent sore throats

• Bad acid reflux
• Often these patients will have bad stomach complaints

• Tooth Decay
• Due to constant exposure of stomach acid from one's vomit in their mouth

• Preoccupation with one's body weight and fear of weight gain

• Depressed mood +/- suicidal intent

The common signs of Binge Eating Disorder (BED) include:

• Eating until uncomfortably full often (not just on holidays or events)

• Eating large amounts of food even when not feeling hungry

• Lack of control over one's eating, and eating a large amount of food at a single sitting

• Large amounts of foods/snacks missing from around the house in a short period of time
• I had one patient's husband tell me that he found bags of empty and unopened potato chips, cookies, and candy shoved into a shoe closet

• Feeling guilty after eating and lying over consumption

Are you worried you have an eating disorder? If yes, take this quiz here:

http://screening.mentalhealthscreening.org/NEDA

In the next blog I will discuss some of the long term consequences of each of these eating disorders, which can be fatal in many cases.

Please feel free to ask any questions ask/follow me on Twitter @Doctor_Deena or Instagram at live.laugh.love.be_healthy!

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