Healthy Place blog post update
Catching you up on my posts at Healthy Place:
What Does Everyone in the Eating Disorder World Have in Common?
Plus a few video and audio posts as well, available on my HP blog page
On "Palliative Care" for eating disorders:
On parents losing their children:
On Lobbying Congress:
What Does Everyone in the Eating Disorder World Have in Common?
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
Obesity Prevention and Eating Disorder Prevention
Monday, April 26th, 2010
The Difference Between Family Therapy and Family-Based Therapy for Eating Disorders
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
Your Child With an Eating Disorder Has To Gain Weight, But Do You?
Monday, April 19th, 2010
Disordered Eating and Eating Disorder: What’s the Difference?
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
DSM: Does It Matter How We Diagnose Eating Disorders?
Monday, April 12th, 2010
Fear of Frying: Why Parents of Anorexia and Bulimia Patients Dread Mealtime
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
Was this Classic Children’s Book Written for Parents of Eating Disorder Patients?
Monday, April 5th, 2010
Plus a few video and audio posts as well, available on my HP blog page
On "Palliative Care" for eating disorders:
On parents losing their children:
On Lobbying Congress:
Hi Laura, I want to respond to the second video--the one about the books.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you that we've got to expand outward to increase our knowledge and understanding about EDs. Like you, I was able to do some of that on my own when my d. was ill, and I continue to do so. Some of the most helpful information I found at the time was not in the ED literature at all, it was in literature I turned up while researching specific symptoms, or researching better-understood conditions that shared symptoms with EDs. Biochemistry and brain reseach was very helpful. Literature on various deficiencies and how nutrients work synergistically with each other was very enlightening as well and gave me some things I could put in place in my own home.
It's almost as if in the ED world generally we still regard many of the symptoms of ED as someting ethereal--almost magical, but not in a good way. If a psychological symptom is so prevalent as to be nearly universal, I think that we need to stop regarding that as a choice or a personality quirk once and for all, and run down what physical process is causing it or contributing to it. Just because we don't know an answer right now doesn't mean there isn't one. There is. Somewhere.
I understand the notion of being "agnostic on cause", and how that stance can still produce a treatment that's very widely effective. But even now, that's not 100%. Maybe by standing on the shoulders of giants from many medical disciplines, we could see further and come up with not only a cure, but effective and targeted prevention, too.
Noting Cathy's response to the next blog post above, I don't discount the notion of psychological trauma's role in triggering the illness.
I do know, however, that trauma can have some real, quantifiable, physical ramifications. I don't say that to discount a patient's suffering from any trauma, and help for any residual effects is crucial. I do think though that one of the things we should be looking at is how the physical consequences of trama and the stress response overlap with the physical consequences of something like, say, frank malnutrition. And what do these two things have in common with the people who have chronic, low-grade strep infections who go on to develop PANDAs-induced AN? And what is it about the patients who go to Pfeiffer and have such dramatic results?
Part of what I find so frustrating is that some of this legwork has already been done, but it seems to me that even the best researchers in any given area are way down at the end of their own little cul-de-sacs. I'd like to see them meet at the intersection for a street party on a regular basis and REALLY compare notes. In part, the competitive and super-specialized nature of science and reseach is getting in the way.
Malia