Viewing blog posts tagged with "Anorexia Nervosa"

On February 18 I attended the annual conference of the Columbia River Eating Disorder Network (CREDN) and heard Dr Ken Weiner of ERC speak there.  Ken spoke about the uselessness, hopelessness and mirage of dieting, but he also spoke about some of the issues pertinent to managing the patient with anorexia nervosa.

In Dr. Weiner’s experience, and the experience of his colleague Dr Craig Johnson (founding editor of the International Journal of Eating Disorders and founding member of…

I (among other people)  have recently been challenged by Laura Collins to get the message out that weight restoration is critical to psychological recovery in anorexia nervosa.  Some authority, Laura says, must declare definitively that psychological recovery is tied to weight restoration.

Some authority….ok…but who?

Since the late 1990’s the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) has issued guidelines for hospitalization (after all, a serious intervention) based on medical parameters…

This is the second and final case presentation Dr. Morton makes of two illustrative examples of anorexia nervosa.  This time it is a young man.  He mentions that the patient is the son of a friend—so imagine how motivated he was to establish the correct diagnosis and find a successful treatment! First Morton discusses the differential diagnosis, establishes the correct diagnosis, discusses failed treatments and finally discusses his successful treatment of what, to him, is a chronic…

As promised, here is the first patient case report by Richard Morton in his 1689 book, Pthisiologia. My comments are in regular italics and his original text in bold (with original, Stuart England grammar and spelling!).

History 1

Mr. Duke’s Daughter in S Mary Axe (a medieval parish in London memorialized by a modern London street of that name) in the year 1684. and the Eighteenth Year of her Age, in the month of July fell into a total Supression of her monthly Courses from a Multitude…

If your child or adolescent is admitted to a hospital for the medical complications of an eating disorder, you need to carefully assess adequacy of care at that hospital.  

Common sense would dictate that we not become aggressive, belittling or demanding of professionals on whom our child is temporarily dependent for medical intervention, however you should not hesitate to inform yourself, rely on your intuition and experience and ask questions.  The days of “because I said so and I…

This is a difficult time of the year for our patients and, I imagine, for eating disordered patients everywhere.  All over the country people are making plans for family to gather and to frequently do what can only be described as “binge” together.  Why do I say binge?  Well, because on Thanksgiving day people frequently eat more, sometimes much more, than they ordinarily do, which triggers a lot of “regret” style talk, which triggers a lot of discussion of everyone’s diets, weight…

Readers of this blog know that Kartini Clinic offers inpatient medical stabilization, partial hospitalization and outpatient care, all entirely family based.  We do not offer residential care.  However, we find ourselves occasionally forced to refer a patient for residential treatment despite the fact that residential care is by its very nature not family based and despite the fact that the patient will ultimately have to return to their community and family and try to stay in…

I sit at my desk drinking coffee; our patient census over the years is approaching two thousand children and young adults, the majority of whom have had anorexia nervosa or its variants.  And I am thinking about our boys.  

Given the approximate accepted statistic that 90% of patients with AN will be female, (even though the percentage is higher in younger patients), that still gives us around 200 boys.

Remember, with that many, if you think you recognize someone from these…

What does it mean to say a family member of a patient with anorexia nervosa is “affected” or “partially affected” with an eating disorder?

The last ten years have brought us a lot of new information about eating disorders in general and anorexia nervosa in particular.  One such bit of new information is the evidence of heritability of anorexia nervosa.  In a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry Dr Cynthia Bulik, a well known researcher from the University of North…

I find myself explaining this many times to parents and friends of our patients: there is a secret language to eating disorders, one our patients have taught us.  Unlike many other languages, however, this language consists mostly of an internal translator that takes what you say in English and translates it, transforms it, into something quite different.

These “translations” can be very distressing to the person speaking as well as to the person being spoken to, and the only good…