Somehow I Became a Normal Eater

Throughout my experience with extreme nausea while taking flagyl, I only threw up once in the middle of the first night about 7 hours after taking my first flagyl dose. Although I tried to distract myself, I could no longer control the physical urge to throw up. Fortunately I wasn't so ill that I continued to throw up or dry heave the rest of the night, as I often do when I'm ill.

After getting sick that first night with flagyl, I did everything I could to prevent getting so nauseas that I threw up again. The metallic taste and nausea caused by flagyl were strongest when my stomach was almost empty and I needed to eat. So I wanted to keep whatever I ate in my stomach. Also throwing up might make me lose the flagyl pills as well as endure even strong metallic taste for hours afterwards. So I drank ginger tea, put fresh ginger into my food, drank lots of room temperature water, and exercised in fresh air every day to reduce the nausea. All that got me through the next 29 doses without throwing up.

Coping with constant nausea and doing everything I could to prevent throwing up completely changed my beliefs about throwing up. My experience with flagyl plus changing my beliefs about food and eating over the past 3 months transformed me from being someone who previously chose to throw up when I felt uncomfortably full, nauseas or suffering cramping gut pains to someone who abhored vomitting and wanted to avoid it no matter what. Also I went from being someone who previously gave myself permission to overeat or even binge, because I knew I could threw up if I felt uncomfortably full, to someone who obsessively avoided overeating or getting too full, because I hated feeling overly full and I hated throwing up. My husband tells me that's how normal people think about throwing up. I also suspect improving my digestion by taking betaine hydrochloride capsules before every meal (which increased my stomach acid) also made me less apt to want to throw up.

Going from using vomiting to cope with discomfort to abhoring the thought of and avoiding vomiting no matter what is a major transformation for me. I previously counted days, weeks and months of 'abstinence' from bingeing and purging, because I hoped that time would change my perspective (or belief that I could binge because I could purge). Nevertheless, I regularly interrupted my abstinence periods with a binge/purge episode or 2.

However, I also still had good/bad food beliefs, which made bingeing attractive as a way to let myself occasionally eat with abandon all the foods I rarely ate without feeling guilty. I didn't worry about calories or fat grams, because I knew I could eat small amounts of anything and not affect my weight. However, my guilt was regret that I wasted my appetite on less than healthy foods (too high glycemic, too low fiber, not nutritious, etc.). My healthy food beliefs (such as 'always eat high fiber foods to prevent irregularity' or 'choose healthy fruits, vegies and meats instead of sweets or treats') kept me craving but fearing the foods I considered 'unhealthy'.

Before my experience with flagyl, I still doubted whether I could continue to 'abstain' from bingeing and purging. After all, I've only abstained 3 months since my last episode. (However I had many 3-6 months long abstinence periods before that.) Most people in 'recovery' only consider a year or more abstinence significant. However now I'm no longer hanging onto abstinence by my fingernails. I don't worry everytime I feel stressed that I might give into urges to binge (and purge).

Previously I chose to binged everytime I felt overwhelmed with physical, psychological and mental stress. Yet, while I did the flagyl treatment I also felt scared, angry and occasionally hopeless as well as very physically ill and overweight, but did not think about bingeing. (I gained a few extra pounds before I started the flagyl treatment, perhaps because I felt too tired while I had undiagnosed c-diff to be as active as usual or maybe because I did some comfort eating.) All those factors, painful emotions, horrible side effects and regret about weight gain could have motivated me to binge on 'forbidden' foods to comfort myself emotionally and then throw up to comfort myself physically.

However, I decided that I would not even think about weight during the flagyl treatment, because I had a potentially fatal bacteria (c-diff). Getting well was more important than a number on the scale. Also I only judged foods by whether they made me less nauseas. I didn't consider calories, fat grams, fiber or glycemic index. I only considered what felt good in my body, made me less nauseas and masked the metallic taste of flagyl. I had NO hunger signals to tell me when to eat. I only had nausea (after I ate) or extreme nausea (when I needed to eat again). Low blood sugar symptoms (headache, coldness and shakiness) also told me when to eat. Sometimes I ate just to cope with nausea, even though I didn't think I needed food. However, I could not overeat without suffering painful reflux and discomfort for hours afterwards. So I soon learned not to eat past just enough.

Now my hunger cues have returned, but I still don't like feeling full after eating. I prefer satisfied or just enough to full now. Amazingly I feel less inclined to eat, even when I notice hunger, because I don't HAVE to eat to treat nausea. I can choose to eat when I'm moderately hungry and will enjoy the taste of the food. Also I ate ice cream after 1-2 meals a day to mask the flagyl metallic taste after taking the pills. Now I have no cravings for ice cream. Instead I crave acidic foods I didn't like to eat while taking flagyl (like strawberries and tomatoes).

Ironically the extra pounds I gained before the flagyl treatment mysteriously disappeared, even while I ate ice cream and sweets to cope with nausea and the metallic taste. Best of all my clothes fit better (no matter what I weigh), because the flagyl killed the bacteria that caused chronic bloating. I still get bloating after taking probiotics at night, but that bloating disappears by morning.

Will I stop counting weeks and months since my last binge/purge episode? Probably not. Even though I changed my perspective and removed all the 'reasons' I used bingeing and purging to 'cope' with stress, I plan to celebrate each day as a normal eater. I want to enjoy each day I spend free from irrational food, eating and body beliefs. Tracking those days on the calendar just reminds me how far I've come and to never take 'normal eating' for granted.