Gastric sleeve post anorexia nervosa

[Mek123 0]

Hello all, I am considering gastric sleeve surgery after absolutely ballooning over the past 3 years.

I had a consult phone call with a nurse from the clinic and she seemed confused by one of my questions. My question was is WLS contraindicated if there is a history of severe anorexia nervosa. Since she seemed a bit confused by this question (actually, she couldn't seem to comprehend this, which was a bit comical), I ended up doing some research and it does seem there can be concerns following surgery about relapsing into anorexia.

I have a consult with the surgeon next week and hopefully I will be able to talk with him about this a bit more.

But did anyone else here have anorexia nervosa? For me, I was diagnosed at 11 and had a lengthy hospitalization at age 16. For anyone who had the surgery with a similar history, how did you manage to avoid being triggered by diets and restrictive eating?

Thank you!

[catwoman7 10,883]

I think a lot of us had the opposite problem - but I can see how that could happen, since both are disordered eating conditions. You might have to work with a therapist to avoid getting back into anorexia if that's a concern. A lot of WLS patients work with therapists ANYWAY, even if there's little or no chance of anorexia, just because we continue to have problems with disordered eating even after surgery (unfortunately, the surgery doesn't work on our brain....)

[Tim C 335]

Had a GF that had this. Still struggles with it. I can see why the nurse was confused as this is probably a rare situation.

[lizonaplane 1,605]

I am not surprised by the confusion, but it will come up for sure in the required psych evaluation. I had some issues with restrictive eating in my early teen years but they were of limited duration and were more about other things. However, the psychologist really went into the details and also about the few times I had used purging. I don't know whether you would be denied for surgery or whether you would simply be required to have more ongoing therapy; it wasn't an issue for me. I have bipolar disorder and they are requiring that my psychopharmacologist sign off on my having surgery. So, I would at least assume they would want any current therapist you are working with to be in agreement with you having surgery.

I am also not surprised that recovering from anorexia nervosa has caused your weight to increase drastically. It's pretty common, although I don't know of anyone else who has had WLS after having any eating disorders other than binge eating.

How many years have you been in recovery? It seems like for me personally even the prep work I've had to do to change my eating habits to prepare for surgery has brought up some of the issues I had with restrictive eating, like trying to be "perfect" in my diet, and feeling like no foods are truly healthy enough. It's a real struggle.

Good luck!