Many of you know that I had digestive distress years before I developed bulimia. As a constant source of pain, discomfort and embarrassment, bulimia was the only relief I could find from the pain – although it was temporary and certainly not the solution. My experience recovering from bulimia the day I recovered from digestive distress with The Body Ecology Diet led me to do some research.

In fact, my research paper and project for my graduate studies program on Eating Disorders is on how digestive distress can contribute to eating disorders. In this paper, I am going to shed some light on how the principles of repairing digestive health can aid in the prevention and recovery of eating disorders.

I have been scouring the internet for articles that I can use for my paper and have found some amazing links to IBS and eating disorders, namely the problems with serotonin resulting in digestive problems and pain. Last night, I finally found an interesting website and wanted to share it with you:

The Gastroparesis & Dysmotilities Association has found that many people with digestive distress are mistakenly diagnosed with eating disorders.

Here is some of what they say in the website:
Any suspicion of an eating disorder must be carefully evaluated by a qualified psychiatrist or psychologist. Those who have a genuine eating disorder may also have significant upper digestive distress and should be fully evaluated by a gastroenterologist with expertise in “motility” disorders/diseases. These two problems can co-exist.

Without adequately addressing an underlying motility disturbance, then any psychological intervention will be ineffective.

You cannot make someone eat or stop vomiting when this problem is driven by an electro-physiological dysfunction within the stomach and / or gut. Motility problems are problems found within the enteric (gut) nervous system and are not psychologically induced. Emotions and stress will modify the digestive symptoms–but they are not the cause for the symptoms.

Of important note, many who suffer with upper digestive symptoms of chronic, severe nausea, may find relief with self induced vomiting; again this is not evidence of an eating disorder.

Some people with upper digestive motility problems (like gastroparesis) do not vomit easily and instead can have nausea build to a horrible crescendo an hour or two after eating. They will have perspiration, excess salivation, paleness, hyperventilation and want more than anything to vomit to get through the over whelming symptom of nausea.

Some of these individuals may induce vomiting which may bring relief from the acute, intense urge to vomit.

They are intuitively performing what, for others is surgically done through the placing of a venting gastrostomy tube.

It cannot be stressed enough. It occurs too frequently. Individuals with upper digestive distress who have an underlying physiological disorder of gut motility are dismissed or incorrectly labeled with psychological problems to explain their symptoms.

My Situation – A Bit Differnt From What They Wrote
Now, I did have nausea and pain before bulimia started, but it did not build into a crescendo an hour or two after eating with the symptoms they described. It was more like a terrible case of IBS. So I want to dig a little further by calling this group of doctors and see if we can find out some answers.

Recovery – Repairing The Inner Ecosystem
The good news is that the The Body Ecology Diet helps to repair these issues – slow digestion, slow motility, IBS, issues with the small intestine & colon, etc. I will talk more about the principles that make this possible in future posts.

I also plan to share any additional findings from my research – maybe even my paper if it doesn’t put people to sleep! In any event, I’ll share resources and insight as I find it. The idea is not to say, hooray, we never really had an eating disorder :) — it’s actually to say that there are truly physiological reasons that we are driven to this behavior – and there are ways we can repair this process. The longer we’ve had it, the longer it may take to find our way back to health, but each step feels better and better!

Body Affects Mind, Mind Affects Body
I don’t think it’s possible to live with an addiction and not have it enter your mind in some way, even if it started from the body. How do you decide how these things start? For example, as a teenager, I – like all my friends – thought about weight, diets, jeans sizes, etc. However, on any given day, I’d be so bloated that my clothes were tight. Why? I had no idea. I didn’t connect it with digestive pain or constipation.

I didn’t realize my body was trying to do what it needed to because things weren’t working as they should digestively. So I learned to not trust my body. I’d try things like eating less on some days and if the bloating went away, I thought that must be it! Little did I know that it wasn’t about the FOOD/CALORIES/RESTRICTION, etc. In fact, my body was possibly going through a process of getting back to normal. Suddenly, my clothes fit again.

What Came First?
Is it unbelievable to figure that I’d think I couldn’t trust my body and had to manipulate my food in order to fit into my clothes? Is it any wonder I’d think that I could get fat overnight? What was I supposed to think, when no doctor could help me?

So this is my point, I don’t know what came first – the chicken or the egg – the physiology or the psychology. However, I do know that before I ever cared about diets I had digestive distress, pain and abdominal distention. That makes me think it must have originated from my body and infected my mind with “mistakes of the intellect” – or creating an equation between food and weight that didn’t exist.

Principle of Uniqueness – A Body Ecology Tenet
After attending the Certified Body Ecologist training, I know that people can eat without feeling pain and still have symptoms that drive them to want to binge or even not to eat at all. Everyone is unique. So while my situation may describe some of you, others may wonder if they too have a physiological reason for bingeing or restricting. It all goes back to the inner ecosystem, which I will write about in another post.

I’m very interested in people’s stories, if you’d like to share. I think we can shed some light on prevention and recovery through sharing with each other. Thank you for all you have shared so far!

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