Expert: Joanne - 10/15/2004

Question
Hi.  I really need to find the answer to this question.  If you stop abusing ipicac does it totally come out of your system?  Or does some toxicity of emetine stay in your body forever?

I have been in eating disorder hell since I was about 12 years old.  I'm 28 now.  In the last two years of my life I have used this stuff of and on chronically about everyday, sometimes more instead of every now and then.  I recently stopped about 4 months ago.

The first time I tried to stop I went to my psyhcolgist because I was so depressed and I couldn't hardly even move my mucles.  I wasn't that underweight (94 pounds then), but I couldn't even open a pop top on a diet soda, or grip a key to unlock the vehicle.  He did some research on it and freaked out and sent me to the ER.

They did heart tests on me, X-rays, and bloodwork.  Everything checked out ok, except the numbers for my muscles turned up low.

Did the ipicac make me lose muscle mass or was it the poision accumulated in my body?  I am trying so hard to not do this, but have a couple of times after this four months of stopping I recently took some.  It took longer, and the next day I had diarreah.  Whenever I took it everyday, the same thing happened eventually.  Sometimes when I was doing it everyday it wouldn't even come up.  I know that my muscles will hurt if I do this.  I don't want to, and am trying to get professional help for my problem, but I am not being taken seriously right now.  They look at it like I am not really having a problem because in that 4 months I stopped I gained 50 pounds.  But now I have lost 8 pounds in the past two weeks by restricting and I have used this stuff twice.  I am now a bit overweight though.

I just want to know if I don't do it anymore will I be alright?  Will it come out of my body?  How do I know if I have emetine poisioning?  Please help me.  I keep begging and begging for help, it seems like to me I'm trivial.  I feel ok now, better that I did quit using it.  I'm so afriad that it will become a compulsive thing again for me to swallow this drug.  

Answer
I don't know much about ipecac, you'd maybe be better asking your doctor.  I do know, however, that it is removed slowly from the body, therefore regular misuse will cause it to build up in the body.  This in turn can cause irreversible heart muscle damage.  Supposedly Karen Carpenter didn't actually die because of anorexia, but heart failure due to the abuse of Ipecac.

Please push your doctor into giving you help.  I know what it feels like to not look as though you are 'ill'.  I'm probably normal size at the moment, maybe some would class me as quite slim, so because I'm not emaciated, I feel terrible for expecting someone to help.  I was also scared that people would take one look at me and refuse to help because I wasn't thin enough.  But that wasn't the case!

You will come across people that don't think that you have an ED and are just attention seeking because you aren't the stereotypical thin anorexic.  People used to look at me and think that I was very ill.  Before they realised that it was an eating disorder, they thought that I had some terminal illness.  I was becoming skeletal and people were doing their best to try and help me to overcome the problems behind it, but as soon as I started following bulimic behaviours, the weight started to creep back on.  Everyone thought that I was finally getting better, little did they know that I was actually probably becoming more ill then than I'd ever been.

Nobody actually knew that I was still ill until the scars on the back of my hand became evident, and even then very few actually knew what was causing them.

The best advice I can give you is SEEK HELP NOW.  It will be easier to treat now rather than later.  You are definitely not trivial and don't let anyone make out that you are.  You are worth looking after and you'll be easier to treat while you realise that you are doing wrong.  Later you might decide that there is nothing wrong with what you are doing, so won't want to be helped.  Explain to your doctor your previous situation and how much you don't want to go back there.  If he still doesn't help, try and contact a local eating disorders group, or even some sort of clinic.  If this doesn't suit you, as a last resort maybe try writing to a psychologist or ED specialist yourself.


Please let me know how you get on!

Lots of Love
Holly