Possible hospital

Hi loulou - I'm sorry to hear of your struggles.

You sound like you need a lot of input. I don't know where you are in the country, but hospital admissions for eating disorders are extremely rare due to the limited number of beds and horrendously they only tend to occur when someone has physical complications (e.g. their ECG is showing continuous abnormalities putting them at risk of heart failure and so on). The other admission criteria is under the mental health act, and you don't want to be sectioned. There's a great film a friend of mine did with the charity Fixers on what it's like to be sectioned. It's called Sectioned. 

I don't mean to frighten you, but this is the reality.

I can rant about how messed up the health system is (they should enable early intervention), but that's counter productive here. What is best is working with a team in outpatients, rather than waiting till you do get to the point that they have to admit you. Hospital is not a vacation, a lot of people actually end up worse off as a result of their admission, because they are so poorly when they are admitted and they are only eating because they have to (or are tube fed). By the time they leave, they are so reliant on the hospital environment to help them with their eating that it becomes so hard to do it on their own.  I have a good friend who is struggling as a daypatient currently, having had three admissions. 

In answer to your question, about considering hospital, unless it is made available to you, it is unlikely (due to NHS funding) that it will be a choice. If they have said to you we think you should come in as an inpatient, then this is something you need to consider. If your condition deteriorates you may well have no choice as they will make the choice for you...make sense?

In the meantime, I would talk to your outpatient team (I assume you are seeing some sort of consultant at present?) about what kind of community support you can have. Are you seeing a therapist to talk about your issues in the first instance?

It would be good to see a dietitian also.

You should see your GP regularly to have your bloods and heart (ECG) done regularly too, especially if what you are eating is so limited.

A bit of nutritional advice. Fluids / water doesn't contain calories, so I'm wondering why you are restricting there? It is common when you are weighed to restrict liquids, but generally through the day it makes no difference whatsoever as it will literally go through you.

If you are worried about your weight, you will probably have noticed differences up and down (assuming you are weighing yourself regularly). Weighing yourself more than once a week is actually pointless, because all it shows is that you have been to the toilet more or less. It doesn't show anything in terms of weight loss or gain.  Weight fluctuations occur between 1-3kg over a monthly period. These are completely normal. Even if you ate, drank and did the exact same thing every day, if the air temperature was different on one day, your weight would be different. This is where we get really messed up with anorexia.

The other thing to note is that only 15% of calorie intake is determined by activity. The rest is used for essential bodily functions. So by eating 500/600 calories a day, you are not burning fat, you are actually shutting down organs.

Hope this is helpful. Here to help.

Hi loulou im sorry to hear you are having a bad time, you need proper support in the community and should push for that. I wouldnt consider hospital i have been in Psychiatric twice and an ED unit. The ED unit didnt work for me im still struggling with the anorexia,restricting food exercising and using laxatives. The Ed unit is very food based having to eat six times a day your choices are taken away from you, as suggested bt Katlouise if you dont eat you could be sectioned or tube fed.ED units do work for some but they make you reliant on it so when i came home i couldnt cope and started restricting straight away. I would reach out to family friends and professionals in the community take care

Hi Loulou,

I wondered how things were going?

Hope you're doing ok.

Kat