15 Things No One Tells You About Bulimia

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Man, if I had known the weird shit that would happen to my body I might have put more thought into my decision to purge for the first time. Probably not, but maybe. Unfortunately, the public mainly associates eating disorders solely with thinness and eventual tragic death. A surplus of surprising symptoms exists outside those two things especially with bulimia where many sufferers remain in a healthy weight range. No matter what you eat, you’re still severely malnourished leading to some frustrating and gross side effects (besides the obvious).

 
1. Your teeth take a fucking beating. Seriously, cavities on the back of your front teeth. What the?! And this is with constant brushing and obsessive oral hygiene rituals.

2. Your hair will fall out. Not completely, at least mine hasn’t. But it gets uncomfortably thin.

3. Your hands will always smell like vomit no matter how many times you wash them. Although, St. Ives facial scrub puts up a good fight.

4. Ulcers. Everywhere. Your mouth is a war zone. You haven’t done college until you’ve drunkenly cried to your best friend that your molar is going to fall out because your gums are deteriorating. Fucking. DETERIORATING.

5. Your skin will get so dry. The amount of money you spend on lotion will double. True story.

6. If you drink anything carbonated you projectile vomit onto your shoe or an equally inconvenient place no matter how cautious you are next time your purge.

7. Your lips and mouth get ridiculously chapped.

8. Even when you don’t purge, you feel nauseous and bloated because your metabolism is so slow and your body isn’t used to digesting food. As in holy shit, I think I am suddenly six months pregnant, no one touch me for two days until this crap is out of my system.

9. Sex becomes really uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. In fact, you might even faint afterwards from exertion. Boy, then you’re not the only one who is uncomfortable. But still such great exercise, so you’ll most likely do it anyway.

10. Cuts and bruises never heel due to malnourishment. I have had the same bruise on my ass from sitting on a wooden chair for the past month. 

11. You retain water like no other. 

12. You can’t control your body temperature especially in your hands and feet. 90% of the time I’m freezing and the other 10% I’m sweating my ass off.

13. You tear the lining in your esophagus at some point. It will hurt and scare you and you will probably throw up blood. It will be a moment of clarity among a million moments of bullshit where you ask yourself why you’re doing this and how you arrived at this dire place.

14. You will have that terrifying Jimi Hendrix panic moment when you choke on your own vomit. Probably because you ate rice or something equally dangerous and it got stuck in your windpipe.

15. No matter how much weight you lose, you still hate how you look. Not to mention you’ll hate yourself for putting your beautiful body through such trauma.

featured image – Flickr / Admond