Stomas, Bowel Issues and Eating Disorders - The Balancing Act

There is no doubt, living with an Eating Disorder is hard. Your mind using any excuse to revert to the disordered behaviours that maintain the illness.

What can make it even harder is living with other chronic health issues at the same time. The constant balancing act of trying to manage both in the best way possible without ever really getting it right.

Two of these issues for me is living with my Stoma and Chronic Bowel Issues.

For those who aren't fully aware, I will be doing lots on Stomas in the near future. But here I want to focus on the effects of it, and my wider bowel issues, and how that can really impact my eating disorder.

My stoma was needed because of chronic constipation and a bowel prolapse, something I had before my eating disorder, but the ED has exacerbated the issue, and caused me to do irreparable damage to my digestive system. Digestive issues are known complications of eating disorders too.

My stoma affects my life in a lot of ways:

• It means I have to irrigate every morning, taking up to 2 hours of my day,
• It gets blocked, quite regularly, causing pain, nausea, and a LOT of discomfort,
• It doesn't solve the constipation so I have to take laxatives (and quite a lot of them) to prevent things stopping up completely,
• I am in a near-constant state of bloat, discomfort and background chronic pain.

Add all of these together, and it can be really difficult to maintain regular nutrition, especially when no matter what I eat it is VERY unpredictable. Now try adding that to an eating disorder which makes me WANT to eat less, to restrict as much as possible, and to avoid foods I am not familiar/feel safe with.

Yeah... that's where it goes from being difficult to often feeling impossible.

Every day, having to eat through pain, having to go against everything that not only my mind is telling me, but often my body too. To eat regular, nourishing, filling meals. To snack in between, to drink a LOT of fluids (also something that comes with a stoma), and to somehow try to manage my bowel issues so they don't completely disable me.

Sound hard? That's because it is hard.

In no way am I saying this for sympathy, or to say I have it "worse" than any other sufferer. This is just my life, and having bowel issues is the life of many other sufferers too.

So... how do I manage things? How to cope?

The truth is you sort of just do. You get used to the discomfort, find strategies to lessen it where possible, and don't overdo it on the challenges. A few things that work for me:

1. Massages. These have been a lifesaver for me. When I am really bloated or gassy, massaging my stomach helps move things around and lessen the discomfort.
2. Heat. Grab a hot water bottle, have a bath, heat can help ease the bloatedness and pain.
3. TENS Machine. When the pain is really bad, a TENS machine can be super helpful and is a worthwhile investment if you have chronic bowel issues.
4. Do a little bit of movement. If the pain is bearable, a short walk (or even jumping up and down a few times) can help things move along. But again this can be counterproductive to eating disorder recovery, so it can be a really tricky one (see: https://mymessylife96.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-dark-side-of-exercise-part-1-making.html)

But mostly, the thing that helps the most, is actually getting into a routine. I know this goes against a lot of what many describe as ED Recovery, however for some it is a necessary evil in order to manage things in the best way possible. And this is also the case for me.

Because with multiple things going on, there is not a perfect way of doing things, there is just a balancing act of trying to manage two (or more) things which both contradict each other. Finding that balance takes time, (a LOT of) mistakes, learning what your body can and cannot do, and setting boundaries.

One of the hardest parts is knowing where it is genuinely my bowel issues, or actually it's my Eating Disorder talking and making excuses. Because they contradict each other so much, often in the past I have 'used' my stoma and bowel issues to explain why "oh I can't eat that" or "I can't go out sorry" when in truth I could manage it.

Sometimes, and it sounds horrible, you just have to push through the discomfort as long as it remains within a tolerable level.

So yeah, living with an eating disorder is hard. Add to that having a stoma and chronic bowel issues, it makes it a real balancing act. What that balance looks like will be unique to you, but there is a balance out there which will allow you to live the best possible quality of life with the cards you have. I'm still working on finding my balance, and it will likely change over time as my bowel issues progress

But there will always be a way.