ahhhhhh( maybe trigger)

I find myself on this forum so much of the day. Reading over and over the success stories. I'm constantly looking up info on food disorders. And fantasizing about food I don't eat. Makes me feel good day to look at a picture of pizza and go no your not Eatting that. I can't STOP thinking about what cals I'm Eatting I get nervous when I'm eating All I seem to do is think about my next meal or how I can make excuses for not having one. I know I'm going on here. It's a bit of a rant. I don't really have anyone I can talk to about this. My partner is in a bad way with his drinking And every day it seems he says something about me being fatter etc, I think he thinks its funny.. any advise on how to deal with the head that will not SHuT it?

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HELP **Trigger Warning**

 i'm in deep trouble and i feel like everything's out of control.

So i'm 5'4 and a rough 125 lbs BMI(21.5),hour-glass body shape, 15 years old. I lost a silly 19 lbs through starvation in almost 5 months. I am, as well, a regular user of the (cinnamon,black pepper,cumin) mix used lower blood sugar and lose further weight- I consume huge amounts of that every single day. Now, all i'm left with is an astounding resting pulse of 34 per min (48-53 nowadays that i started eating), extremely low blood pressure, clinical amenorrhea(no period for 3 months), abnormal hair growth, cold sensation, severe hypoglycemia, low body temp, hair loss, yellowish skin, anemia .. etc.

 Notes: This is my second relapse.

I had anorexia when:

1) I was 12(starting weight a 148 lbs, I would guess. lowest weight 92.4 lbs ,no period for 6 months). It lasted for a rough 7 months before which i was unlucky enough to get infected by the H1N1. I did purge a couple of times(though I haven't ever binged)which i stopped gradually for the tormenting pain it caused me. Visited a psychiatrist twice, found her very intimidating, presented an eating plan which got on my nerves, stopped visiting her right after, gave me a prescription of cypralex(not sure of the spelling), only took 3 pills then threw the rest away. I later on went through an intensified eating course(4,000 - 4,500 calls a day-mainly junk food)-after my parents threatened to put me in a hospital, got my period back at a weight i wasn't specifically aware of(weighing was not allowed), experienced severe hair loss at this phase, stopped gaining right afterwards.

2) I relapsed 4 months later(lost a bit of weight, period stopped for 3 months), gained a massive amount of weight back(same as that prior to my ED, which was somewhere from 148-156 lbs), regular periods for 2.5 years, excellent physical strength, thick, lustrous hair, not what i could call regular exercise(on and off). 

PS: This is nowhere near regret.

3) I relapsed 2.5 years later(125 lbs though fitting in the skinny pants i bought when i was at my lowest weight of 92.4 lbs, a bit more loose, though) no period for 3 months, hair loss-again. low pulse, blood pressure, blood sugar levels. I suspect something to do with my liver(read about the toxic coumarin found in cinnamon which could cause liver failure if consumed in large amounts-I'm on 1 tbs a day.)

PS:Blood check will only make things worse. Both my parents are doctors, so both are in panic already, and i couldn't afford to put them in more stress. Psychiatric treatment is not even close to possible-where I live, It's considered shameful. I have absolutely no desire to gain ANY weight-though sometimes I will just give up because i'm in so much despair. But i go back to my solid opinion straight afterwards- NO weight gain is allowed. Nowadays, I consume somewhere from 1100-1700 calls. and the big deal is that my parents are now threatning to put me on birth control pills to get my period back. My a father's a gynecologist, so i find him crying whenever those pills come into mention. All I want to do is go hug him and soothe him. But, he always tells me that i need to gain more weight. But i CAN'T. It's that once I'm faced with this thought I feel like vomitting and my throat closes. I just CAN'T gain anymore weight. and I have a high body fat percentage of somewhere from 24.3% to 25.57%

Please. HELP ME.

Edited Jun 15 2013 14:28 by coach_k
Reason: Added a TW to this thread title

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Beer's Taste May Trigger Urge to Get Drunk

By Barbara Bronson Gray
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, April 15 (HealthDay News) -- Just as the smell of freshly brewed coffee may compel you to pour a steaming cup of java, a small taste of beer may activate part of your brain's reward system and trigger the urge for more, a new study suggests.

Researchers have discovered that sensory cues associated with drinking may stimulate certain parts of the brain and cause a craving for more alcohol. Giving people a very small amount of the brand of beer they most frequently consume produced a desire to drink that was correlated with the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward-and-pleasure centers.

The study also showed that the amount of dopamine released was greater in those who had parents or siblings with alcoholism.

"This is the first human demonstration that a stimulus that is reliably associated with alcohol association -- that flavor alone, without any significant amount of alcohol -- is able to induce a dopamine response," said study author David Kareken, a professor at Indiana University School of Medicine.

The research, published in the April 15 issue of the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, validates some findings from earlier animal studies, making them more relevant to understanding what's happening in people, Kareken said. "We have a long history of developing alcohol-preferring rats and mice, and the last 20 years of research does show there are neurotransmitters that are distinguishable in [rats and mice] that prefer alcohol."

Kareken said the study also may help reduce the stigma of alcoholism. "This is really quite strong evidence that there are genetic factors that change the brain's chemistry and may act as risk factors for dependence," he explained.

For the study, 49 right-handed men in good physical and mental health, with a mean age of 25, underwent two brain scans. None of the participants had a history of significant drug or tobacco use, although all of them expressed a preference for drinking beer (as opposed to other alcoholic drinks). Women were excluded from the study because it was difficult to find potential participants who preferred beer and met the criteria for inclusion in the study.

Right-handedness was required because most people have language capacity on the left side of the brain, and the researchers wanted to make sure that any differences between the men would not interfere with the study, Kareken explained. Data about ethnicity or social or economic level was not collected.

The participants were tested while tasting 15 milliliters (about half an ounce) of the beer they usually drank, and also while tasting Gatorade.

The beer flavor was mixed with a small amount of alcohol -- not enough to cause a pharmacological effect -- to help make sure the participants were experiencing something close to what they would sense when drinking beer, Kareken explained.

The researchers found that, compared to Gatorade, beer flavor significantly increased a man's self-reported desire to drink, and the scans showed that the alcohol-associated flavor induced the release of dopamine in the brain's striatum region. The association with dopamine release was greatest in those with parents and siblings who were alcoholics.

Family history of alcoholism is one of the best ways to assess genetic risk, explained Kareken. "Alcoholism isn't a simple autosomal dominant genetic mechanism." (If a disease is autosomal dominant, it means you only need to get the abnormal gene from one parent to inherit the disease.) "There are probably many, many genes that predispose people through different pathways to eventually have alcoholism."

Dr. Scott Krakower, medical director of the Mineola Community Treatment Center in Mineola, N.Y., said the research makes sense.

"It's one of the first pieces of research that tests whether the flavor of something affects behavior," he said. "People tell me they can't be around alcohol at all because it immediately triggers them to start drinking," Krakower added.

"The research may change some physicians' advice to patients if they're aware there's an exponential increase in drinking, just due to the flavor of the drink," Krakower said. "We really promote complete abstinence; otherwise it's a slippery slope for people with a history of alcoholism."

Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCES: David Kareken, Ph.D., professor and director, neuropsychology section, and deputy director, Indiana Alcohol Research Center, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis; Scott Krakower, D.O., medical director, Mineola Community Treatment Center, North Shore-LIJ Health System, Mineola, N.Y.; April 15, 2013, Neuropsychopharmacology

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Beer's Taste May Trigger Urge to Get Drunk

Study found flavor alone activated brain's reward center; effect stronger with family history of alcoholism

By Barbara Bronson Gray

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, April 15 (HealthDay News) -- Just as the smell of freshly brewed coffee may compel you to pour a steaming cup of java, a small taste of beer may activate part of your brain's reward system and trigger the urge for more, a new study suggests.

Researchers have discovered that sensory cues associated with drinking may stimulate certain parts of the brain and cause a craving for more alcohol. Giving people a very small amount of the brand of beer they most frequently consume produced a desire to drink that was correlated with the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward-and-pleasure centers.

The study also showed that the amount of dopamine released was greater in those who had parents or siblings with alcoholism.

"This is the first human demonstration that a stimulus that is reliably associated with alcohol association -- that flavor alone, without any significant amount of alcohol -- is able to induce a dopamine response," said study author David Kareken, a professor at Indiana University School of Medicine.

The research, published in the April 15 issue of the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, validates some findings from earlier animal studies, making them more relevant to understanding what's happening in people, Kareken said. "We have a long history of developing alcohol-preferring rats and mice, and the last 20 years of research does show there are neurotransmitters that are distinguishable in [rats and mice] that prefer alcohol."

Kareken said the study also may help reduce the stigma of alcoholism. "This is really quite strong evidence that there are genetic factors that change the brain's chemistry and may act as risk factors for dependence," he explained.

For the study, 49 right-handed men in good physical and mental health, with a mean age of 25, underwent two brain scans. None of the participants had a history of significant drug or tobacco use, although all of them expressed a preference for drinking beer (as opposed to other alcoholic drinks). Women were excluded from the study because it was difficult to find potential participants who preferred beer and met the criteria for inclusion in the study.

Right-handedness was required because most people have language capacity on the left side of the brain, and the researchers wanted to make sure that any differences between the men would not interfere with the study, Kareken explained. Data about ethnicity or social or economic level was not collected.

The participants were tested while tasting 15 milliliters (about half an ounce) of the beer they usually drank, and also while tasting Gatorade.

The beer flavor was mixed with a small amount of alcohol -- not enough to cause a pharmacological effect -- to help make sure the participants were experiencing something close to what they would sense when drinking beer, Kareken explained.

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Weather Doesn't Trigger Fibromyalgia Symptoms, Study Finds

But some patients still may be more sensitive than others

By Mary Elizabeth Dallas

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 4 (HealthDay News) -- Although some people with fibromyalgia are sensitive to changes in temperature, sunshine and precipitation, new research shows that weather conditions do not affect the pain or fatigue associated with this chronic condition.

"Our analyses provide more evidence against, than in support of, the daily influence of weather on fibromyalgia pain and fatigue," said study first author Ercolie Bossema from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

The study, published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research, involved nearly 350 women with fibromyalgia, a chronic syndrome that causes unexplained pain, fatigue, headaches and sleep disturbances. The women were 47 years old, on average, and had been diagnosed almost two years earlier. They were asked about symptoms of pain and fatigue over the course of 28 days, during which time the researchers also recorded weather conditions, including outside temperature, sunshine duration, precipitation, atmospheric pressure and relative humidity, as reported by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

Changes in weather showed a significant but small effect on pain or fatigue symptoms for 10 percent of cases. Significant, small differences between patients' responses to weather also were found in 20 percent of cases.

The researchers said differences among the women's response to weather conditions did not appear linked to functional or mental health status, demographics or seasonal or weather-related variations.

In the United States, 5 million people have fibromyalgia, many more of them women than men. Although the cause of this chronic pain syndrome is unclear, previous studies have suggested some people with fibromyalgia are more sensitive to certain stimuli. Up to 92 percent of people with this condition report a worsening of symptoms because of weather conditions.

"Previous research has investigated weather conditions and changes in fibromyalgia symptoms, but an association remains unclear," Bossema said in a journal news release.

The study's authors said future research on this issue should include more patient characteristics, such as personality traits and beliefs about chronic pain, in order to explain individual differences in weather sensitivity.

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False-Positive Mammograms Can Trigger Long-Term Distress

For some, anxiety persisted up to 3 years after being declared cancer-free, study finds

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 19 (HealthDay News) -- Women who have a false-positive mammogram result -- when breast cancer is first suspected but then dispelled with further testing -- can have lingering anxiety and distress up to three years after the misdiagnosis, a new study finds.

The emotional fallout is probably so long-lasting, "because the abnormal screening result is seen as a threat to your own mortality," said study author Dr. John Brodersen, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

The report is published in the March-April issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.

False-positive mammograms are often cited by public health experts as a downside to mammography screening that needs to be considered when making recommendations about who should be screened, at what age and how frequently. They aren't uncommon: the risk of a false positive for every 10 rounds of screening ranges from 20 percent to 60 percent in the United States, Brodersen said.

After an abnormal mammogram, doctors typically order additional mammograms and, depending on those results, more tests such as an ultrasound or MRI, and finally a biopsy.

Studies about the short-term and long-term consequences of false-positive mammogram results have produced mixed findings, which Brodersen said spurred him to conduct his study. He evaluated more than 1,300 women, including 454 who had abnormal findings on a screening mammogram and others who received normal results.

Of those 454 who first had abnormal results, 174 later found they had breast cancer. Another 272 learned the result was a false positive. (Eight others were excluded from the study due to unknown conclusions or a diagnosis of cancer other than breast cancer.)

The women answered a questionnaire about their psychological state, such as their sense of calmness, being anxious or not about breast cancer and feeling optimistic or not about the future. They repeated the questionnaire at 1, 6, 18 and 36 months after the final diagnosis.

Six months after the final diagnosis, those with false positives had negative changes in inner calmness and in other measures as great as the women with breast cancer. Even at the three-year mark, women with false-positives had more negative psychological consequences compared with women with normal findings.

The differences among those with normal, false-positive and breast cancer findings only began to fade at the three-year mark, the study found.

Brodersen can't say if women who were more anxious about health or life in general to begin with were more likely to have long-term distress. "I have not investigated this aspect," he said.

Even without this information, the study is a good one, said Matthew Loscalzo, the Liliane Elkins Professor in Supportive Care Programs at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif.

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False-Positive Mammograms Can Trigger Long-Term Distress

Title: False-Positive Mammograms Can Trigger Long-Term Distress
Category: Health News
Created: 3/19/2013 10:35:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 3/19/2013 12:00:00 AM

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Salty Diet Might Help Trigger MS, Rheumatoid Arthritis

By Barbara Bronson Gray

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, March 6 (HealthDay News) -- Eating lots of foods loaded with salt may do more than raise your blood pressure: Researchers report that it could also contribute to the development of autoimmune diseases, where the body's immune system mistakenly mounts an attack upon some part of the body.

Three new studies suggest salt may be a prime suspect in a wide range of autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS), psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis (arthritis of the spine).

A significant increase in the incidence of autoimmune diseases, especially multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes, suggests that environmental factors, and not genetics, may explain the trend, the researchers noted.

"The diet does affect the autoimmune system in ways that have not been previously recognized," said senior study author Dr. David Hafler, a professor of neurology and immunobiology at the Yale School of Medicine, in New Haven, Conn.

It was an accidental discovery that triggered the researchers' interest in salt; they stumbled upon the fact that people who ate at fast food restaurants seemed to have higher levels of inflammatory cells than others, Hafler explained.

In the study, Hafler and his team found that giving mice a high-salt diet caused the rodents to produce a type of infection-fighting cell that is closely associated with autoimmune diseases. The mice on salt diets developed a severe form of multiple sclerosis, called autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Findings from animal studies are not always mirrored in human trials, however.

Inflammatory cells are normally used by the immune system to protect people from bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic infections. But, in the case of autoimmune diseases, they attack healthy tissue.

Hafler's study is one of three papers, published in the March 6 issue of the journal Nature, that show how salt may overstimulate the immune system. In addition to Hafler's research, scientists from the Broad Institute in Boston explored how genes regulate the immune response, and researchers from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston zeroed in on how autoimmunity is controlled by a network of genes.

All three studies help explain, each from a different angle, how "helper" T-cells can drive autoimmune diseases by creating inflammation. Salt seems to cause enzymes to stimulate the creation of the helper T-cells, escalating the immune response.

"We think of helper T-cells as sort of the orchestra leaders, helping the immune system know what the cells should be doing in response to different microbial pathogens," explained Dr. John O'Shea, director of intramural research at the U.S. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, in Bethesda, Md. "The strength of these papers is that they have found another factor that drives [helper T-cell] differentiation -- salt."

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Migraine Triggers May Not Always Trigger Migraines

Jan. 23, 2013 -- Worrying about what may trigger a migraine attack adds to the discomfort of many people with migraines. But according to a new study from Denmark, much of that worry may be unfounded.

The researchers studied the effect of light and exercise -- both commonly believed by patients to trigger migraine with aura -- and demonstrated that neither caused attacks in most of the people enrolled in the study.

“There are a lot of things about headache and migraine that are accepted as true but that remain untested,” neurologist Peter Goadsby, MD, Dsc, says of triggers. “The results of this study may surprise some patients.”

Goadsby, director of the University of California, San Francisco Headache Center, co-authored an editorial that accompanied the Danish study. In his clinical practice, he sees many patients whose quality of life suffers as a result of both their migraines and their efforts to avoid triggers that they believe will lead to attacks. In addition to light and exercise, other proposed triggers include stress, emotions, and certain foods.

But there’s little evidence that any of these things really do trigger attacks, says Goadsby. He hopes that, in addition to the current study, there will be much more research on triggers.

“There are tens of millions of people with migraine,” says Goadsby, “and all they have to go on are tales handed down about what triggers them.”

To investigate the impact of light and exercise, researchers at the University of Copenhagen recruited 27 people who had migraine with aura, a condition in which headaches are preceded most often by other symptoms, such as blind spots and light flashes. Nausea, excessive yawning, and numbness are among the other possible aura symptoms. About 1 in 5 people with migraines has migraine with aura.

The study participants -- 17 women and 10 men whose average age was 40 -- all said that light or exercise, or a combination of the two, triggered their attacks. To test their claims, the researchers exposed each of the participants to their triggers.

In 30- to 40-minute sessions, one of three different types of stimulation was used to mimic the light that patients said triggered their migraines. The exercise portion of the study was also intense. Participants went running or pedaled on a stationary bicycle until they reached 80% of their maximum heart rate. Afterward, the researchers monitored the participants for three hours for symptoms.

Overall, only three of the 27 participants had an attack of migraine with aura: one after exercise alone and two following a combination of light and exercise. Another three participants had a migraine without aura. None of the participants had an attack after being exposed to light alone.

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Resident fatigue, stress trigger motor vehicle incidents

Dec. 14, 2012 — It appears that long, arduous hours in the hospital are causing more than stress and fatigue among doctors-in-training -- they're crashing, or nearly crashing, their cars after work, according to new Mayo Clinic research. Nearly half of the roughly 300 Mayo Clinic residents polled during the course of their residencies reported nearly getting into a motor vehicle crash during their training, and about 11 percent were actually involved in a traffic accident.

Share This:See Also:Health & MedicineWorkplace HealthChronic Fatigue SyndromeMind & BrainStressDepressionScience & SocietyTransportation IssuesUrbanizationReferenceFatigue (physical)Minimally invasive procedureStress (medicine)Road-traffic safety

The study, recently published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, found that residents attributed the traffic incidents to fatigue and to distress -- including feelings of burnout or depression.

"Just like any other field, residents need their recovery time. In order to make good decisions, physicians need to be physically and emotionally well," says lead author Colin West, M.D., Ph.D., an internal medicine physician at Mayo Clinic. "Residents need to be rested. We don't want them to have undue amounts of stress."

It is well documented that medical residents often work long and grueling hours during their three-year residencies. The intense work schedule has benefits, Dr. West says. For example, residencies prepare trainees to become independent physicians. However, it's important that educators continually update their approach to retain the value of the training while minimizing stress and fatigue, he says. In addition to the 11 percent who had traffic crashes, 43 percent reported narrowly avoiding them.

"The mere fact that motor vehicle incidents are common among residents brings the issues of resident fatigue, sleepiness and distress to a new level of priority," Dr. West says. "New interventions designed to address both resident fatigue and distress may be needed to promote patient and resident safety."

Residents also were asked about the frequency of self-reported blood and body fluid exposures. Of the about 300 residents in the study, 23 (about 8 percent) reported having at least one blood and body fluid exposure due to fatigue or stress during the study period.

To gather the data, participants completed surveys quarterly from July 1, 2007, through July 31, 2011, during their training period. Associations of validated measures of quality of life, burnout, symptoms of depression, fatigue and sleepiness with a subsequently reported blood and body fluid exposure or motor vehicle incident were determined from these survey results.

The study was funded by the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine Program on Physician Wellbeing.

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