Everyone pretty much knows about the most common side effect of anorexia: the weight loss. However, people are not really aware of the nasty and gritty side of what happens to your body. I am writing this because even though I am almost a year into recovery and weight restored I am still having to go through them. For everyone it is obviously different, but I thought I would share what happened to me.
One of the first things to happen to me was my period to go. I went 9 months without a period and they are still very irregular. I don’t think I have ever been so happy to get one in my entire life. I was completely and utterly over the moon. In a weird way I finally felt like a woman again and that my body was working how it should.
After my period came constant stomach trouble. There is no nice way to say it other than that nothing would move. I had several blood tests and was put on all sorts of medication and it was incredibly uncomfortable and worrying. It is logical though, if nothing is really going in then nothing is really going to come out. Kevin had me in denial. No matter how many times I could see the logical solution I became more and more deterred from it and opted for all sorts of medication instead.
Next my blood work showed that I had an irregular thyroid. My thyroxine levels were well below what they should be for a young “healthy” teen. My doctor insisted they would bounce back up within three weeks. Low and behold they did not. That is why if you do some research you will find that most models have thyroid problems…
Then it was my blood pressure dropping. I got constant head rushes whenever I stood up and my finger nails would go blue every time I ate when all the blood would rush to my gut.
Limited body fat equated to constant cold. I was not even able to go for a swim in the sea as it would take me around 2 hours to warm up. I technically became a ‘vulnerable’ person as my white blood cell count was also insufficient. My alopecia was re-triggered and I started reliving all the extreme hair loss I thought I left behind 3 years ago.
However, the final straw was my heart. I went for an ECG on my own not expecting much from it. The results showed I had a resting heart rate of 45bpm and that was not because I had turned into some kind of prodigy athlete. The nurse had me wait at my surgery while she checked my results with the resident cardiologist as she said it was not safe for me to leave. She returned and told me I needed recovery as I did not want to be, in her words, ‘18 years old with a pace maker after having had a cardiac arrest’.
There you have it, the horrible and nasty side effects that come when EDs take over and push you to drop pounds far faster than your body can cope with. There all sorts of other physical effects on the body that come from anorexia: osteoporosis, anaemia and lanugo growth to name a few.
I guess I just want to de-glamorise the whole experience for you readers out there. These issues were just some of the more extreme side effects of what happened to my body. Anorexia may have made me thinner but it starved so many other parts of me in the process, which I never ever intended. It really does take over your life in so many different ways. The next time you hear someone speak about how they missed a meal, or are trying some new fad diet trend or are criminalising foods and cutting them out because they want to lose weight fast, maybe remind them that there is more to life then food and weight. As I know further down the line shedding those pounds will never have been worth it.
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