Wife making herself sick?

LudaMusser

I'm really concerned about my wife (28) and I don't know what to do or who to talk to.

When she was at secondary school she was bullied, from what she's told me it was down to her weight. She does'nt like to talk about it and still gets upset now. By the time she was eighteen she had lost alot of weight, this was due to not eating not dieting.

We've been together for over five years and for pretty much all of that time she has just eaten once a day, in the evening. She has never had breakfast or lunch, for those two times of the day she has a coffee and a cigarette.

Increasingly after my wife has eaten in the evening she will go upstairs and be sick, within 5 minutes of having finished eating. I until recently put this down to her body having been put through years of not eating properly, basically rejecting the food. However, over the past month I've heard my wife being sick upstairs and I'm adamant that she's making herself sick. It sounds very controlled. I know whenever I've been sick it's been as and when it happens, when I hear her it just sounds like it's her putting her fingers down her throat.

I've spoken to her about her being sick when she eats, she says she is'nt making herself sick. If we go out for a meal she does the same thing, she goes to the toilet as soon as she's finished eating as is sick.

I have no idea if what she's doing is harmful to her body? Maybe she is'nt making herself sick, I just know that she's sick every evening within five minutes of eating. Why would her body reject food if she's not making herself sick?

I guess my main question is just, is this harmful to her body be it being sick on purpose or just naturally being sick, either way I don't think it can be good for you

All constructive input appreciated, I'm just concerned about her health. She's 5ft tall and roughly 8 st, she think's she's fat and overweight but she's tiny. I can't convince her and have been with her for five years

VikkiiKawaii

Unfortunately if she is making herself sick there isn't a whole lot you can do for her until SHE wants to get better.

To answer your main question, yes it's harmful, it can cause all of your teeth to rot and possible fall out over a period of time because you are covering your teeth in stomach acid.

flower24

It sounds like she has an eating disorder :-( not sure what to suggest you do though as she seems in denial. I hope you find a solution.

sharnad

she wont get help for the bulimia unless she recognises it - maybe go to the doctors and see if they have any leaflets on the subject

daska

Regardless of whether it's something she does deliberately or not it isn't good for her teeth, throat or digestive system. Either way she needs medical help, I hope you can help her get it.

julie2710

Definitely sounds to me as though she is making herself sick. Is it harmful to her health? Definitely. Apart from the rotting of her teeth it will affect her fertility. If this has been ongoing for some time the chances are she will be having irregular periods if any at all. She will clearly lack essential vitamins and nutrients as the five minutes her food is in her body won't be long enough for any absorption. Her immune system will be compromised and in the long term she could do irreparable damage to her major organs.

Can you do anything to help her? This is where the problem might lie. If she is in denial then she won't seek help herself. I don't think a doctor would intervene at the moment either as her weight isn't life threateningly low. It may need to get worse before it gets better. I'm not sure if you've ever talked about starting a family? Might be a way to get her to a doctor for a general health check.

brook2jack

Please read http://www.b-eat.co.uk/ hopefully with your support your wife will realise she has a serious health problem and start making the steps to recovery. You can open the door for her but she has to walk through it. Good luck as I'm sure this is very stressful for the both of you.

vanessav

You are right to be worried. I heard a very good interview with a recovering bulimic on Radio 5 the other week. She said that a book called 'Decoding Anorexia' was a huge help in understanding her illness. It might be worth your while looking for this on Amazon (etc). It sounds as though your wife is in denial, but it would help you to have knowledge anyway. Good luck.

sulkisu

She definitely has an eating disoder, I'm afraid. Even without the vomiting, eating just once a day and a highly distorted view of her size and body image point to this. I wish I could offer words of encouragement here but as others have said, until/unless she accepts that she has a problem, there is little that you can do. Arm yourself with as much information as you can, but be careful how you approach it with her - as with all psychological illnesses, doing or saying the wrong thing can make it worse. It might be worth discussing it with your own G.P. Make sure that you look after yourself as well though, as this must be tough on both of you.

Racheldevon

Ask the GP to refer you to your local IAPT service, which will assess and refer into appropriate level services to support.

There's a national centre for eating disorders, info here: http://eating-disorders.org.uk/

And an NHS guide here http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/teengirls/Pages/treatmentforeatingdisorders.aspx
In addition to BEAT there's info available on Rethink which might be useful http://www.rethink.org/young_people/what_is_mental_health/what_are_eating_diso.html?gclid=CMCMh-uGyLYCFdHLtAod2WQAww

LudaMusser

Thank you for all of the replies,

As I thought, making yourself sick can be very harmful to your body. One reply mentioned that if you make yourself sick after five minutes it's means the body won't be able to get vitamins through the food. My wife fainted once and that was put down to this reason, I believe a lack of Iron specifically

I'm going to look at the links and I think the weight watchers online might be a good idea, she could eat healthily and not put on weight and at the same time not have to make herself sick

I've got a feeling she may deny she has a problem but I hope she'll come round eventually

Thanks