Blog anniversary

HAPPY BELATED ONE YEAR BLOG ANNIVERSARY

The official date was two days ago, hence the "belated." Looking back at this blog year, there's been some ups, some downs, and a vast intermingling of gray. I've probably shared more about myself on this blog than I do in actual real life which is kind of a sad statement when I look at it written.

Blogging, e-mailing, and the like have always produced this ability that allows me to share more about myself than in everyday life with the exception of very close friends or professionals. I'm not sure whether it is the anonymity factor, being behind a computer screen, or just being able to think more about what I want to say. Perhaps, it's just the fact that it's the sole place beyond therapy where I actually talk about recovery and personal experiences with eating disorders.

In any case, this blog has been helpful in many ways. I hope it's been helpful to those who read this blog as well. I thank all of those who have supported and encouraged me along the way, even to the lurkers out there. ;-) To each and every one of you, may you never feel alone.

image: Wikimedia

Raynaud's syndrome, cold, and eating disorders

As the cold season approaches, there have recently been a number of posts on feeling cold. The posts can be read here, here, and here. There's no doubt that those with eating disorders have a higher propensity to feeling cold more than others. This can be due to malnutrition, lack of sufficient body fat, or perhaps an increase in non-shivering thermogenesis.

There has not been much research indicating whether those with eating disorders have changes in this type of physiological occurrence to cold even with weight restoration or recovery. My personal feeling is that as recovery begins, the ability of cold tolerance gets somewhat better, but I'm not sure it completely ever goes away. It's sort of like the body changes permanently. That's just my own opinion through experience and talking to others.

Something else this topic reminded me of is Raynaud's Phenomenon, also known as Raynaud's Syndrome, or Secondary Raynaud's. From the Raynaud's Association webpage, Raynaud's is defined as:

Raynaud's (ray-NODES) is a disorder of the small blood vessels of the extremities, reducing blood flow. When exposed to cold, the blood vessels go into spasms, which may cause pain, numbness, throbbing and tingling. Emotional distress may also trigger such a response.

image: ohiohealth

Surprisingly, Raynaud's is more common than expected with 5-10% of the general population having this, and the prevalence higher in women than men. However, the majority of people never receive treatment due to mild symptoms or sloughing it off to just poor circulation or cold sensitivity. Raynaud's can, however, be potentially dangerous if symptoms are severe, causing ulcerations and even gangrene!

The most effected areas of Raynaud's are the fingers, toes, ears, and nose, though it can be seen in other body parts as well. Upon cold temperatures or stress, these extremities may turn white or blue. After warmth and relaxation, they will turn an exaggerated red color.

There is no formal cure for Raynaud's and treatment is limited to avoiding cold temperatures/warming up, medications (calcium channel blockers which dilate blood vessels), topical antibiotics if there are ulcers, and relaxation techniques.

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I remember in late high school and my early college years I experienced Raynaud's. At the time, I didn't have a clue about it other than my entire middle finger would turn this stark white color and lose sensation in cold temperatures. Eventually, I associated my cause of Raynaud's due to severe restriction. It's interesting, because I would show this to my parents or friends, and they never put two and two together like I did. As the eating disorder "evolved," the Raynaud's seemed to disappear as suddenly as it appeared. I don't know whether this will ever occur again, but in the back of my mind, it is an indicator that things are not right.

With experiencing this, I was also curious about whether others with eating disorders have had Raynaud's. Research is in this area is very sparse. I did find one case study about it with a young woman who presented simultaneously with both anorexia and Raynaud's. She received the standard eating disorder treatment of nutritional and counseling therapy as well as a calcium channel blocker for the Raynaud's and transdermal hormone replacement therapy for osteopenia and amenorrhea. Both anorexia and Raynaud's symptoms improved after treatment.

Case report

So I guess the take home message is that if your body extremities are turning white or various shades of blue, it is important to get it checked out whether it is simply due to an eating disorder or is idiopathic.

Weight perceptions among children and parents take 2

A new study out of the University of Melbourne came out about parents' and children's views of their weight. This type of study isn't new ( read another here) except for the fact that this study looks at both notions of underweight and overweight children as well as measuring waist circumference versus body mass index as a sole indicator. It turns out, with BMI, children were classified overweight more often than waist circumference.

Although this study does emphasize weight and numbers, the results show how skewed the perceptions are of parents and their children's weight. You can read more information on the results here.

The ones I find most interesting are:

Parents were more likely to report that their sons were underweight and that their girls were overweight.
Twice as many parents expressed concern about their child being overweight compared to underweight.
Only 4/10 underweight girls and half of underweight boys correctly assessed their weight.

The overall results of the study show the bias towards thinness as well as the lack of research and definition for children's weights. Dr. Schmidt, the author of this study concluded with, "In particular we need to make sure that the focus on reducing the number of overweight children does not have the adverse impact of increasing the number of underweight children." I think this is something to strongly think about with our society's emphasis on weight and being "healthier."

Oh so close

I must admit since my meltdown from Monday, I couldn't be happier the week is coming to an end. It was just one of those weeks that felt like time was ticking by so so slowly. My emotions seemed to be on a roller coaster as well. On one end, I took more naps, not really because I needed them, but just to break up the day. At other times, I found myself giddily laughing at something on tv. Yes, the scene was funny but not to the point of hysterically laughing.

My eating for the most part was okay, but I had no motivation to run which of course left me feeling guilty. Tonight, I had one of those moments of eating WAY more than I intended and contemplated purging A LOT. It was a scenario of wanting to purge away something just to feel "empty." We all know it never works that way. So I reminded myself that this will really pass, that I don't need this, that this isn't going to solve a thing. Luckily, soon after, I had to go do late night kennel. It helped just to take my mind off of it. I still feel gross, FAT, and awful, but it's better than purging, having a puffy face with red dots, a runny nose (oh wait, I already have that one), or a sore throat. So again, I have succeeded. It still doesn't feel easy, and I don't know what point or how long that will take until I get there. But at least I am doing it which is way more than I would have said ten months ago.

Now, onto some other news. For whatever reason, when I got back home tonight, I had a very sudden feel of the chills. then my head hurt and I felt "stuffy." I've had a slight cold since coming back from the conference, but this feels awful. I'm hoping it goes away by the morning, because I have many phone calls to make--reschedule my therapy appt., call my dentist, call the vet (I think Baxter has an infection in his little boy parts (I'm saying this rather than the technical term since who knows what could pop up in a search, and I don't really want to be linked to porn or something)), and call the glove guy. And I really don't need to be ill!

On that note, I'm calling it early and going to get some zzzzs.

Reminders of fall...

You know it is fall when...

Mums are sold everywhere

Apples are in season with many different types



Candy apples are available

The squash availability exponentially grows



You see Cushaw, another type of squash



And of course, we can't forget all those pumpkins--everything from mini to small to large

When dental pieces and nips collide...

This is a vent post more than anything, but I guess this is progress since I've been pretty down this week. Basically, I'm in one of my "crap, I can't believe this has happened" modes.

So here's the situation:
The culprit:

:
image: amazon

What I was doing: chewing them
What happened: my freaking bridge on my right side of my mouth fell out completely!
The result: one bridge and a large gaping hole in my mouth.

It's been awhile since I've had a tooth post, so I guess I was due for one. I am astonished by this since I have not had any tooth problems or major dental work done since January. My most recent killer toothache and saga was last November. By and all, this is of course progress! I guess I just felt I was out of the woods. Since the tooth extractions have been done and my purging has ceased, infections have dropped to zero. Score one for me!

But then this darn bridge. I know I'm going to need a new one probably sooner rather than later. It's just one of those lasting reminder of how bulimia wrecked my teeth. Oh yeah and plus all the holes in my mouth. I seriously thought I was on the denture route there for awhile. Not that that is funny, because of course it is not, and I'm thankful for the teeth that have been saved. Moment of silence please.

The thing I do find funny in all this is the culprit! Those Nips. I don't eat them often, but I like to indulge in them when I do. And well, this is not the first time I've had some tooth part fall out because of them. At least this time, the dental part is in one piece. I can't tell you how many fillings, crowns and bridges I've chipped, broken, and swallowed. Yeah, it's not wise to try to eat sushi with a temporary/loose crown. That one I was not fetching! I actually heard of someone doing that. Ewww!

So besides nips, the other food products that have made my teeth break or dental parts loosen are crackers, ice, frozen gummy bears, and other hard candy. These folks are just not wise to eat with dental porcelain or metal in your mouth, so be forewarned, especially if your teeth are already weakened.

So my game plan will be to call my dentist tomorrow, leave her a message and see when I can get in next week. In the mean time, I'll have to try to only eat on my left side of my mouth, smile less and not talk a lot (neither have been an issue this week). Otherwise, all my holes can be fully seen. And I'd rather not be known as the "toothless young woman" working with dogs.

College GPAs and health-related behaviors

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that college is often a difficult time for many students. With learning to juggle classes, exams, and friendships, it can all take a toll on one's health. In this new study from the University of Minnesota Boynton Health Service, it looked at college gpas and health-related behaviors of 24,000 students in both 2 and 4 year institutions.

The results showed that almost 70% of students were stressed, and about 33% felt that the stress was hurting their academic performance. These students had a mean gpa of 3.12 compared to 3.23 gpa for those who did not feel the stress impacted them.

Other factors that caused declines in gpa were lack of sleep, excessive television/computer use, and smoking. Gpas ranged from 3.04 to 3.12 compared to 3.27 to 3.28 for those who received adequate sleep, limited their television/computer use, and did not smoke. Other issues such a mental health, drug use, alcohol use, physical activity, and several others were also surveyed.

Although this seems logical that with unhealthy behaviors gpas drop, it's good that college are taking notice at the health of their students. Hopefully, this will help students change their behaviors and college officials to provide additional resources where neded.

Now, of course, there are those college students who defy all these odds and wind up having extraordinary gpas despite having unhealthy behaviors. Yes, I raise my hand to that one, though I wouldn't say my gpa was extraordinary. These students also need help as success isn't always about a gpa number.

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It's a bit ironic I read this article, because I recently made the connection about one of the reasons why I have a hard time going back into academia. Actually, the academic environment is essentially like a big trigger for me. It was one of the times the ED was the most heightened and out of control. I was super stressed and felt like I was just grasping for straws half the time. This environment puts me in what I call "tunnel-vision" mode as it's all about succeeding and reaching the next goal no matter the cost. There are other insecurities as well in relation to intellect and self confidence, but it's really about the strong association of academics + eating disorder that freaks me out.

If I decided to go back this route, how do I tell myself it will be different this time or that academia is not this or that?