Overuse of Laxatives as part of an Eating Disorder
Posted: Sunday, December 20, 2009
by Keira Benson
A friend and I were having a conversation recently, triggered by the news that moves were afoot to stop laxatives from being available off the shelf in pharmacies and, presumably, supermarkets in the UK.
Apparently, as with paracetamol-based products and cough medicines, we need to be protected from ourselves and our addictions.
What we really need is for more information to be available on the subject. For those of people who have trodden this well worn path over many years to educate those who follow in their footsteps. And, hopefully, to prevent them from making the same mistakes and suffering the same long term health consequences.
For anyone who thinks that laxatives are a good idea for dieting, my friend's story should provide a stark warning and I agreed to pass it on.
In her late teens and early twenties, she was both bulimic and anorexic. Mostly, she would eat nothing and use the laxatives to lose what little body mass she did have. But, if she did have a weak moment and binge, she would purge herself by putting her fingers into her mouth and activating the gag reflex until she vomited.
When I registered my horror, she agreed that this was a totally disgusting process and told me that it rots your teeth and just makes you feel permanently nauseous.
After several months of this behaviour, she could bear it no longer and moved onto laxatives to do the job more discreetly... and that was the start of decades of intestinal and gastric problems.
The laxatives did their job for a while, ensuring that she emptied her system every day but then she started increasing the dosage so that she could 'achieve better results'. It seemed to work for a while, but then her bowels just became totally confused by all the additional stimulation.
She was either completely constipated, with the waste building back up through her intestines and causing terrible bloating which only added to her distorted perception of her own body.
Alternatively, her stools were so loose that she was terrified to go out for fear of soiling herself.
However, her body dysmorphia meant that she persisted in this ridiculous regime of starving and purging herself.
Then followed the worst symptoms. The acute stomach cramps every time she did try to eat something. These were so painful that she couldn't walk. Her gut would go into spasm, causing her belly to distend. She wanted to vomit and to defecate to ease the painful swelling but was unable to do either. All she could do was lie horizontal and wait for it to pass.
Although she only misused the laxatives regularly for a year or so, these problems continued for decades afterwards, even during the time periods when she thought her anorexia was under control.
IBS and Crohns Disease were all suspected at various times, but now she accepts that a lot of the problems were triggered by her reliance on laxatives in those early days.
The damage this did to her intestinal walls was exacerbated by her predominantly bread-based diet and stressful lifestyle. One of the most obvious signs of an eating disorder is the tendency to eat toast. It can be eaten without the additional calories of butter and in between normal meal times so people think you are actually eating normally.
The additional yeast, undiluted by any other food groups and combined with the already existant internal problems, meant that the candida (gut bacteria) proliferated and leeched through the walls of her intestines. From there, it got into her bloodstream and took hold in other parts of her body, causing thrush and other yeast infections.
After suffering with this for many years, she is now on a strict anti-candida diet, as well as taking probiotics to promote a more healthy gut.
Although she hasn't used a laxative for over twenty years, it is only now that her diet has improved that she has begun to recover from the damage caused by her prolific use of them.
Is my friend still an anorexic?
Hopefully, a recovering one, but I think that's a question for another time.
This article can be used on other relevant websites but a reference to the author and a live web link to the site in this resource box MUST be displayed.
For information on treating thrush, candida and yeast infections, visit:
http://www.treatthrushcandidaandyeastinfections.com
This Article has been viewed 2,982 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)Thank you for writing this. Its a wide spread problem that cant be ignored. a lot of our friends need help and we don't even know it.
If laxatives had not been freely available, I'm sure your friend would have found another way to facilitate her anorexia and bulimia. I do however agree that the prolonged and unnecessary use of laxatives is damaging to the body, leading to many unwanted effects in later life. A normal diet with plenty of fibre should be adequate for the majority of people.The current restrictions on paracetamol-based medicines is because of the low dose which can cause permanent liver damage and death. I believe that the lowest amount of paracetamol to cause death by liver failure was 12 tablets - 6 grams. This is the information which should be available
This is something I have not heard of. I can't imagine anyone wanting to take a laxative, but then, I can't imagine the rest of this either. I hope your friend is doing well.Hey LorrieIt's a pretty vile scenario isnt it! My friend is now a recovering anorexic and hopes that talking about the consequences of her actions will help young women not to follow in her footsteps.
Yes it is...I recently had an employee who used both laxatives and a finger down her throat as a method of weight management...sad.Hey Richard, The thing is that you have to work out why they do it. And, as Joanna has told me many times, you then have to find a way to build their self esteem to stop them. It's a long, slow process but there are some very damaged people out there...
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.