u/cantstropwontstrop

Hi, first time posting and I wasn’t sure which flair to use. If this isn’t appropriate for the sub, please let me know and I’ll delete it. I need help and idk where to go with any of this.

Pro-recovery sentiment, but CW: purging

I opened up to my primary care doc about my eating disorder and needing help figuring out how to safely stop using laxatives. She was very dismissive and told me that I would have to work with a specialist before sending in a referral for a clinic that is a) in a different time zone (CST vs PST and several states away; Zoom/telehealth/etc wouldn’t be accessible due to my work schedule) and b) for a teenage client base (I am 29). I’m already working with a therapist and psych, and coordinating with a nutritionist is proving to be difficult re: no insurance, so I wanted to see if anyone here has any experience successfully stopping this particular purge method.

Details: >!I have been using Senna on a daily basis since late 2023/early 2024. I used to take four 8.6 mg tablets a day but have gotten down to 2 or 3 (variable, depends on if I’ve binged or not). I don’t know if I should switch over to like a stool softener or something instead as I slowly try to get back to a normal baseline? I don’t have insurance right now so winding up in the ER with a bowel obstruction or something is not ideal in the slightest.!<

Thank you for reading this far, I appreciate it. Also just fyi, my replies might be a bit late—I promise I’m not ignoring anyone, my browser is just not great at notifying me!

i have a surgery consult tomorrow with the same doctor that performed my laparoscopy in 2023. he was very understanding then and i felt very supported, but i‘m feeling these little twinges of anxiety that remind me of how i felt when i was pursuing an initial diagnosis, and i can’t shake it.

like, ok. yes. i have surgically confirmed endometriosis. the pathology report was positive. i’ve read the surgical summary several times over, and i know that “focal dense adhesions” and “distortion caused by extensive scarring” are a) things that i had and b) bad. i think that there were lesions, and a cyst in my ovary, and a pedunculated fibroid. (i also know that there is still a fibroid that my surgeon and an early doctor who performed a biopsy seemed to have conflicting opinions on—i guess it’s transmural? i don’t fully know what that means. i just know that it’s there)

i know that the first time i was able to sprint to catch the bus and not feel like my insides were being torn apart was because they had excised adhesions connecting things to my pelvic rim. i remember what it was like to suddenly not be in pain, and to recognize that what i had been living with for years actually *was* pain. i lost 90 pounds because i could move without hurting.

i remember the first flareup i had after the surgery, nearly a year later, and how scary it was to realize that not only was it familiar, but that it hurt terribly. wondered how i got through it before. i remember the next big flare, a year after that, and sinking into the floor of a hotel room while the room spun. the next one, a month later. cramps got worse. my legs started aching again. the bloat came back, my weight fluctuated a bit—160 to 165 is a bit different from 160 to 250, but hey. it still wigs me out

still. i didn’t really think about it as bad until the night when i was in bed and rolled over and felt the pull in my side—if i moved to my right side, it felt like everything inside of me was dangling from frayed bits of string. i used to feel like that all the time before getting it cut out, and i felt it and just…froze. because what the hell do you?

that was back in november. i had to cancel my consult that december due to work, and i’m only getting in now because i’m unemployed, and medicaid makes it possible to actually receive the care in question. the clinic is good. the doctor is good. i literally am an established patient who KNOWS that i have the disease. but i’m still freaking out a bit because what if he doesn’t want to operate again? what if he does, but there’s nothing in there? i think i should get the fibroid taken out (we left it in last time because if it would cause c-section risk otherwise, but i’m attempting to accept that kids aren’t in the cards) but man, if i get opened up and there isn’t an explanation for the return of the symptom cocktail from before, i don’t know what i’ll be able to feel.

thank you for reading this far, i‘m trying to not spiral over this but its pretty overwhelming and unpleasant to grapple with rn 😔