Persons With Eating Disorder

[Guest BellyTimber]

A person using a mental health forum has an eating disorder, with great effort brought their weight up to near normal but a few weeks before each time they see the doctor the weight plummets.

There is lots of distress, loss of self esteem and the like on that forum. Do I now drop the "bombshell" about ED often being celiac disease (literally an eating disorder) or do I leave them ignorant?

It is divided into sections like this one, I did post a link to this site from a thread in another section.

Almost all the people on that forum think of "mental" illnesses as completely irrelevant to their body and vice versa.

Grateful for your insights, suggestions and viewpoints and of course the responsibility will be all mine

[LKelly8]

Yes. Do mention it. (IMHO ) No bombshells needed.

It may very well not be the case for that person but that doesn't matter. Who knows who'll read your post down the line. Plant a seed and time will tell.

[Nantzie]

Absolutely. I had a period of time where the last thing in the world I wanted to do was eat. Just the smell of food would make me nauseous. The feeling of it in my mouth. How it felt to chew. The feeling of having a lump of wet cement in my stomach. When I did eat, I ate nutritionally dense things because I knew I would only be able stomach a few bites or so. It reminded me so much of magazine articles I've read about people who struggle with eating disorders.

[rinne]

Yes, why not mention it?

I completely agree with you that there is this tendency to think of anorexia as purely a mental illness but I don't think that is true.

There was a great thread a little while back about the relationship between gluten and mental/emotional problems, sorry I don't remember what it was called right now.

[ravenwoodglass]

I am known as a celiac nag on other boards. I post on GI related boards, diabetes, fibro, arthritis, neuro and more and while some origninally thought I was selling some snake oil cure most of the time the info is well recieved. Get the info out any way you can. Even if just one person sees it and is diagnosed it is worth the aggravation you may get from a few nay sayers. With so many ignorant doctors we have to get the word out.

[kbtoyssni]

I'd mention it. I've been wondering about the connection between celiac and EDs for a while now. I'm curious if a large percentage of people with EDs have celiac (diagnosed or not). I feel like there's some subconcious thing going on that makes you associate eating with being sick, but when does the whole fear of food and eating become a paranoia about weight? Or maybe it's so hard to explain why you don't want to eat since it's a subconcious thing, that weight becomes something tangable you can relate to.

Does anyone have any articles about the connection between celiac disease and EDs? I was trying to find some last night and wasn't having much luck.

[ravenwoodglass]

Does anyone have any articles about the connection between celiac disease and EDs? I was trying to find some last night and wasn't having much luck.

I am hoping there are some articles out there. In my family of celiacs we rarely feel hunger. I could and have gone days without eating without having any hunger pangs or desire for food. This hasn't changed gluten-free but I also wonder if there is a connection. Celiac does impact brain function and the wiring between brain and body, hence things like lack of reflexes and movement problems and parathesias. I would imagine it could also impact the electrical pathways between the gut and brain that cause us to feel hunger. It will be interesting to see what may be found.