I know you guys have been posting back & forth.......thought I would put in my 2 cents from someone who has restricted....& can't stand to throw up, so bulimia isn't even an option....& only sometimes I use laxatives when I feel I have gained just too much more than I want.

I have to be honest though, I am going to be the voice of one that has to tell you what it is like to have to have medical treatment for becomming to thin & loosing too much weight. I am 5'2". My first time I lost alot of weight, I got down to 83 lbs. I had been on prozac & for some reason, it made me feel nausea & because I couldn't throw up, I would just not eat. No one even noticed my weight loss untill my husband pointed it out to my pdoc. By that time, I was passing out all the time. My insurance wouldn't cover an eating disorders center, but my pdoc found out that they had money for people who were very sick....I was stuck there for 1 month & didn't want or care to be there, but was forced to be there. Honestly, I didn't care if I lived or died.....it wouldn't be as much of a stigma on my family if I died from anorexia rather than an OD. I refused to change after leaving there, but everytime I passed out, my husband would call my GP & I would get stuck into the hospital. That always involved a Central Line & IV nutrition. That happened almost once a month....but I refused to gain weight. One central line punctured my lung & was stuck being treated for that on top of the nutrition......treatment to make sure that no blood clots would form in my legs. I don't know what turned things around, but I ended up gaining my weight back & over several years, I swong to way overweight while trying to deal with my migraines & then neck fusion to try to fix that (which didn't work). During that time, I also had a bad reaction to one of my psych meds & ended up dealing with the symptoms of parkinson's.

Once I found a pain specialist that was willing to prescribe the med that has now completely controlled my migraines (a high dose of narcotics), I could start functioning again & started training my dressage horse riding. With the exercise, the small amount I ate started my weight loss again at a safe slow rate. After about 1 year, I had lost quite a bit, & then came my mothers Dx of cancer, & I had a bad case of asthma caused from a forest fire smoke that landed me in the hospital. The smoke made me feel so much nausea that I couldn't eat again. My foal was born & got a serious injury at 3 weeks old which required my care 2 times/day. The stress & nausea that I couldn't get rid of caused me to really start loosing a massive amount of weight. Then I went through a horrible trauma when I caught the home care RN stealing my mothers ID & there was alot of threats involved in that & then after she OD'ed my mother on morphine & landed my mother back in the hospital, I was with my mother 24/7 especially after fearing that the RN might do something to me after I reported her to Adult Protective Services & the Police. I couldn't eat or drink without getting sick & my mother's cancer spread throughout her body. With that stress, I ended up getting down to 93 pounds. My GP initially had me hospitalized from my exhaustion.....then I ended up with anemia & malnutrition. The first try to treat me was with a PICC line & IV nutrition....but unfortunately, an infection/allergy, had to stop that treatment. I then had to leave the hospital for my mothers funeral & had to go AMA because the pdoc reported that if I wasn't treated immediately, I would end up dead in a couple of days. My GP looked the other way when I left the hospital so they didn't put the 72 hour hold on me that the pdoc required (this pdoc was from the hospital & not my own). After the funeral, I still was so sick I couldn't eat & ended up back in the hospital agreeing to have the central line & IV nutrition.

I swore when I was young that I would never get fat like my family, so not eating was my way of controlling my weight & after having gained so much weight I swore that would never happen again. So when I lost so much weight around my mothers death, I wanted to keep my weight there....I was continually passing out & when summer came & I was working on my dressage training with my horses for showing, I was continually having to go to the ER for IV fluids & would end up being put into the hospital overnight for observation. I finally decided to gain enough weight to be at my minimum safe weight. Any weight loss puts me low, but I can finally function & be fairly satisfied with my weight. It is no fun passing out everytime I turn around...& passing out in the shower was definitely dangerous. It is much better to be safe than sorry & the treatment for such low weight is definitely unpleasant....& sometimes couldn't be avoided.

Restriction vs bulimia are neither a good choice & I can't honestly tell you that either choice should be made. It is much better to choose a weight that you will be satisfied with & make sure that your Body Mass Index is at least at your minimum......you will be healther & won't have to go through treatment for anemia or malnutrition....it isn't being smart or cute....& looking like a skeleton....isn't attractive. Think about what you are doing to yourselves before proceeding down a path you will be sorry for in the future.

Debbie