Viewing blog posts tagged with "Anorexia"

It is understandable for parents to hope treatment for their ill child could be as close to home as possible - and to wish for as little disruption to family life and work as could be managed - but I for one am very unhappy about what I see as a lack of judgment on the part of many physicians when it comes to hospitalization for a very ill eating disordered child.

Hospitalists, who would under any other circumstances adamantly decline to do surgery for which they were not trained - or…

Jacques, a friend and parent advocate, sent me an online summary of an article discussing the current evidence base for the use of Olanzapine in anorexia nervosa.  Keep in mind as you read the summary that, regardless of the evidence base for efficacy and safety of Olanzapine in general and with anorexia nervosa in particular, this is still an off label use of this drug.  Off label means it is a drug approved for one condition which is used by physicians to treat a different…

Ah the brain, it's so complex; we are so complex!  What of our behavior is under our control?  What is amenable to cajoling, influence and even coercion? Does this change with age?  How is general willingness and ability to learn affected by a specific brain disorder, or can we generalize?

These issues quite frequently come to the fore during the treatment of food phobia, and even infrequently in the treatment of early onset anorexia nervosa.

Some percentage of our young food phobia…

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…

Every researcher in the field of eating disorders tries their best to reduce the burden of suffering for patients.  They try to contribute to the meaningful scientific discussion.  Having said that, however, I am going to proceed to critique an article by Natalie Godart, Sylvie Berthoz, Florence Curt and colleagues at the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris in Paris, France; the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research; King’s College, London Institute of Psychiatry; the…

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…

There seems to be a discussion that simply will not die in the world of eating disorders (particularly when it comes to anorexia nervosa) around whether the “desire for thinness” is culturally bound and whether AN is a “modern phenomenon”.

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to acquire a copy of Pthsiologia, a book written in 1689 by Richard Morton, an astute observer and physician of his day.  Morton’s description of two cases—one in a boy and one in a girl-- of what we now call…

Friends:  at the F.E.A.S.T. conference in Washington DC, I was approached by a mother (we’ll call her Kathy) who thanked me for helping her out from a distance with my blog titled “Determining Ideal Body Weight”.  She told me how she struggled to come to grips with the weight gain her daughter truly needed to get well.  I was very impressed by her eloquence, humility and dedication to her daughter.  I asked her if she would consider writing a guest blog so that other parents…

I made this dialogue up, pieced it together from things that have been said to mothers and fathers seeking our care for their eating disordered children many times over the years.  

“Doctor, I am really worried about Simon.  He seems thin to me and recently all he does is study and exercise, he rarely goes out with his friends any more and he used to be such a social kid.”

“Don’t worry, Mom.  Kids go through all kinds of stages.  They have to experience who they are and often try on…

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…