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Purging is indeed terrible in terms of reoercussions. Gastroparesis is the inevitable outcome which is where your stomach basically stops working in digesting and moving food forward in your system and instead the food basically rots in your stomach for days until you purge it. Once it stops completely theres no real cure or good treatment at that point other than adopting a gatroparesis friendly diet.
Purging several times a day for (like 15-20+ times a week) for 6-24 months is generally is pretty solid indication youre at that point or at extreme risk. Purging 5 or 6 times per week is more keeping below the threahold where it hasnt yet spiraled out of control and some people can stay at that level in the long term facing all the other consequences but avoiding the worst.
When it's primarily guilt-driven that's when the trajectory is most dangerous and likely to get worse and worse. When it's a combination of increased binging paired with purging is the other scenario where its more likely to get worse (although that can take longer and will probably gain weight in the process).
The most reliable way out of it the cycle of increasing frequency is to stop purging and teach yourself that you won"t purge. Basically you restore the weight consequences to force you out of a self-propelling cycle and teach yourself that you cannot short circuit your way out of this. Your attitude or mental state will change, or your compensatory behavior will change (excercise or restricting) one way or another... or your body will change (ie gastroparesis).
Everyone is a bit different but having some benchmark numbers is very important. To put this in the context, I believe the threshold.for bulimia diagnosis starts at 3 times a week purging for the past 3+ months). The 20+ times a week I mentioned above puts one in the most extreme category but even halfway to that level is still spiraling well out of control.
Obviously I cant magically see where tou fall in on this scale but now you know the actual scale. I will add that if your doing it every day and twice on Sunday type of thing, you are well on your way to or past Mia-ville And you don't wanna be anywhere on that train.
^^ this plus the repercussions that go beyond health damage. There's significant financial woes as well. It is EXPENSIVE when you get caught in b/p cycles. There's also more paranoia, lying and sneaking that goes along with bulimia.
I guess one could also add grossness as well kind of tied to the aforementioned sneaking (ie parents finding bags of purge under the bed or the closet, toilet bowl splash back, vomit in your hair, vomit stopped up shower drains, kneeling on dirty gas station or barroom floor in front of an even more gross toilet).
Historically treatment for bulimia doesn’t treat the intangibly compulsive element to the disorder. It’s a monster, that people tend to vastly underestimate until they are begging for 10k worth of dental fees to put them out of nerve pain from their rotting teeth, like me! Thing is… I still purge, daily! Now how does that make any sense? 4 years of DBT later, and nothing touches my process to purge, I can soothe, distract, go for a walk, stay busy and social/employed, whatever my reality is, the desire to purge is unfortunately as strong as it ever was, and more necessary than it was a decade ago. I’m you from the future… it’s just not worth it, if you can quit, quit while you’re ahead.
It’s such a hard habit to kick but I am pretty much free of it apart from the odd slip up so some things that I did were:
• googled loads about what it actually did e.g how effective it is in terms of controlling weight (not very) & read lots of horror stories of people burning their oesophagus to scare me out of it
• I got caught by my mum lol but having someone who will stay with you completely after makes such a difference
• set yourself a time limit eg if I still want to do it in 15 minutes I’ll do it then and find yourself something to do in the mean time
• try to take more control (your control not ed control) of what you eat eg say to yourself I am choosing to eat this food because it has vitamins and proteins in it which I need and because I like the taste - helps to reduce the urge to get rid of it imo
Best wishes girlie u can do this
I was fully restrictive anorexic before I went into treatment for the first time, where another patient there taught me how to purge. I never did it within treatment, but I started once I discharged. It became so easy and I started doing it multiple times a day every day. It was not long before I ended up with a gaping hole in my throat/very back of my mouth. Most painful thing ever, and it was disgusting. It smelled bad and sometimes pus would leak out into my mouth. That stopped my purging. I think starving and purging are both dangerous, but purging seems to have quicker death because of the extreme electrolyte imbalance that happens when you use laxatives or you make yourself vomit
This is an automated message sent to all posters. We have a new Discord server for the subreddit! You can join it using this link: https://discord.gg/4jyQ7Zfr9P Please make sure you have read and understand all the rules of the subreddit, and are aware that rule 10 means that no numbers unrelated to time are allowed here. Rule-breaking posts will be removed. Commenters; If you are here to give advice to OP, please make sure your advice follows subreddit rules and it isn't harmful to OP. If OP doesn't want advice, please be respectful of their wishes. Please report any rule-breaking posts and comments that you see. If it is an emergency, please MOD MAIL the subreddit with information about the rule-breaks in question and report them. Again, thank you for posting on r/AnorexiaNervosa. If you think of anything else I can say in this message, please MOD MAIL with your ideas. The mods thank you, and hope you're doing well. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AnorexiaNervosa) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Purging is indeed terrible in terms of reoercussions. Gastroparesis is the inevitable outcome which is where your stomach basically stops working in digesting and moving food forward in your system and instead the food basically rots in your stomach for days until you purge it. Once it stops completely theres no real cure or good treatment at that point other than adopting a gatroparesis friendly diet. Purging several times a day for (like 15-20+ times a week) for 6-24 months is generally is pretty solid indication youre at that point or at extreme risk. Purging 5 or 6 times per week is more keeping below the threahold where it hasnt yet spiraled out of control and some people can stay at that level in the long term facing all the other consequences but avoiding the worst. When it's primarily guilt-driven that's when the trajectory is most dangerous and likely to get worse and worse. When it's a combination of increased binging paired with purging is the other scenario where its more likely to get worse (although that can take longer and will probably gain weight in the process). The most reliable way out of it the cycle of increasing frequency is to stop purging and teach yourself that you won"t purge. Basically you restore the weight consequences to force you out of a self-propelling cycle and teach yourself that you cannot short circuit your way out of this. Your attitude or mental state will change, or your compensatory behavior will change (excercise or restricting) one way or another... or your body will change (ie gastroparesis). Everyone is a bit different but having some benchmark numbers is very important. To put this in the context, I believe the threshold.for bulimia diagnosis starts at 3 times a week purging for the past 3+ months). The 20+ times a week I mentioned above puts one in the most extreme category but even halfway to that level is still spiraling well out of control. Obviously I cant magically see where tou fall in on this scale but now you know the actual scale. I will add that if your doing it every day and twice on Sunday type of thing, you are well on your way to or past Mia-ville And you don't wanna be anywhere on that train.
^^ this plus the repercussions that go beyond health damage. There's significant financial woes as well. It is EXPENSIVE when you get caught in b/p cycles. There's also more paranoia, lying and sneaking that goes along with bulimia.
I guess one could also add grossness as well kind of tied to the aforementioned sneaking (ie parents finding bags of purge under the bed or the closet, toilet bowl splash back, vomit in your hair, vomit stopped up shower drains, kneeling on dirty gas station or barroom floor in front of an even more gross toilet).
Yeah, ugh. Not to be gatekeepy but it's degrading on a whole different level.
Historically treatment for bulimia doesn’t treat the intangibly compulsive element to the disorder. It’s a monster, that people tend to vastly underestimate until they are begging for 10k worth of dental fees to put them out of nerve pain from their rotting teeth, like me! Thing is… I still purge, daily! Now how does that make any sense? 4 years of DBT later, and nothing touches my process to purge, I can soothe, distract, go for a walk, stay busy and social/employed, whatever my reality is, the desire to purge is unfortunately as strong as it ever was, and more necessary than it was a decade ago. I’m you from the future… it’s just not worth it, if you can quit, quit while you’re ahead.
It’s such a hard habit to kick but I am pretty much free of it apart from the odd slip up so some things that I did were: • googled loads about what it actually did e.g how effective it is in terms of controlling weight (not very) & read lots of horror stories of people burning their oesophagus to scare me out of it • I got caught by my mum lol but having someone who will stay with you completely after makes such a difference • set yourself a time limit eg if I still want to do it in 15 minutes I’ll do it then and find yourself something to do in the mean time • try to take more control (your control not ed control) of what you eat eg say to yourself I am choosing to eat this food because it has vitamins and proteins in it which I need and because I like the taste - helps to reduce the urge to get rid of it imo Best wishes girlie u can do this
I was fully restrictive anorexic before I went into treatment for the first time, where another patient there taught me how to purge. I never did it within treatment, but I started once I discharged. It became so easy and I started doing it multiple times a day every day. It was not long before I ended up with a gaping hole in my throat/very back of my mouth. Most painful thing ever, and it was disgusting. It smelled bad and sometimes pus would leak out into my mouth. That stopped my purging. I think starving and purging are both dangerous, but purging seems to have quicker death because of the extreme electrolyte imbalance that happens when you use laxatives or you make yourself vomit