Expert: Joanne - 2/15/2009

Question
Is it common for the body to take more than 6 months to recover after an eating disorder? I stil experience many symptoms including puffiness from time to time, swelling of my lymph nodes and fatigue occasionally. I recently had some blood tests with my doctor, who couldnt explain my symptoms, all my blood tests i had done came back fine too. I've put on about 2 stone since recovering. Is it just a matter of persevering or do i go back to the doctor again?

Answer
Tori

It is great to hear that you are recovering from your eating disorder!

It can take a lot of time for your body to recover, and in these cases it is just a case of persevering and making sure that you don't return to any disordered behaviours again.

Was your doctor fully aware of the eating disorder?  If not, then make sure that you do discuss this with them to make sure that they are testing everything that they should be!

Providing this isn't affecting your daily life too much, then I think it would be fine to persevere, however, if this is happening regularly, develop more symptoms, you become worse, or you are at all worried, then don't feel that you can't return to your doctor and have them investigate it further.  If this doesn't resolve in the near future though, I would definitely have this looked into further!

Joanne