Can't touch this

Wow. My mind is swirling.

Our Supergoogler, Mamame, over at aroundthedinnertable.org brought 'Hypokalemic sensory overstimulation' to a discussion of the power of touch and digging deeper I find all sorts of connections to things families have reported in their eating disordered children: the response to delayed meals, the strange relationship with high carbohydrate foods, the EXTREME aversion to touch, hypersensitivity to sounds, sensory integration problems, autism spectrum issues, ADHD, diabulimia...

There's valuable stuff here.

Comments

  1. Laura, that's fascinating. Thanks for posting this.

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  2. I agree, it's an interesting connection. However, hypokalaemia doesn't always occur in AN; it's most often a response to purging (vomiting and/or laxative abuse). I never had low blood potassium levels, even at a BMI of 13, which was probably because I didn't purge. Hypophosphataemia is more of a problem in low weight restricting AN, and is largely responsible for symptoms of re-feeding syndrome. The latter also disrupts electrolyte balance.

    Despite having never been hypokalaemic I have always had sensory hypersensitivity. I actually found that this worsened with re-feeding, reaching the levels present before I developed AN. I remain hypersensitive to sound, light, touch and certain smells.

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  3. So glad you shared Mamame's discussion up here. We were/still are puzzled by the EXTREME aversion to touch, autism spectrum issues, sensory integration problems that we saw in our daughter.

    No one has given us any answers and I have not found them. We tried a "listening" program for the sensory integration...not sure it did any good. There went another $400...I still have it (bunch of CDs and headphones) if anyone wants to try it.

    I still wonder if the high forceps delivery did indeed cause some neck injury that led to a lot of these issues.

    No one seemed to believe me that I saw autism spectrum behaviors/effects...problem with kids who can outsmart the testers, in my humble opinion.

    Swirling minds...one day we will have answers.

    Thanks, Becky

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