Anorexia Recovery & Treatment

If you’ve had anorexia for a long time, you may get the symptoms as described below. As the lack of food starts to affect your body, you may:

• Your hearts decrease in size because it is a muscle. This will cause the heart to grow increasingly weaker.
• Stop having periods if you’re female.
• Feel tired and weak, and have aching muscles.
• Get dizzy spells, feel short of breath and feel your heart beating hard (get palpitations).
• Have fine downy hair on your body and face.
• Get cold easily and often have cold hands and feet.
• Start to lose your hair.
• Get constipated.
• Feel full and sometimes get stomach pains after eating only a little food.
• Get dehydrated, which makes you feel thirsty, sick and exhausted.
• Get dry, yellowish skin.
• Show signs of starvation, including swollen limbs (called edema by doctors) or a slow heartbeat, which can mean your heart isn’t pumping blood around your body very well. This can make you feel tired and dizzy.
• Sometimes shiver and not be able to stop, or have other signs of a low body temperature.
• Continues to diet or restrict foods even though you are not overweight.
• Has a distorted body image – feels fat even when you are thin.
• Denies that you are hungry.
• You exercise obsessively.
• Weighs yourselves frequently
• Complains about feeling bloated or nauseated even when you eat normal – or less than normal – quantities of food