it could all be trendy hype on youtube
but i came across vids on dry fasting(no water even)
people claim it resets the body and allows healing
anyone ever tried it?
I certainly wouldnāt recommend doing without water. That could be very dangerous especially if you live in a hot climate
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Have you watched āthe science of fastingā? Itās rather interesting and thought-provoking. They talk about ~21 day fasts under supervision. (This is not dry fasting though.)
I have not tried fasting at all (and will not in the near future at least) for EM.
However, during my twenties I had anorexia, off and on. I know anorexia is not the same thing as therapeutic fasting ā¦ but I wonder if I didnāt damage my blood vessels/nerves in my extremities somehow during that time (EM at 31 yo.) when I was hypothermic, etc. One of my contacts from an eating disorder treatment center has weirdly also been diagnosed with EM herself. I find this very coincidental. I donāt think anorexia caused EM at all, but maybe somehow we were both very sensitive to pain ā¦ whether this existed prior to anorexia or not I am not sure.
Anyway, Iām def. curious if anyone improves or not with fasting ā¦ but I can see it going either way. And I def. wouldnāt try dry fasting!
i still have a diagnosis of atypical anorexia. basically restrict a lot but have managed to maintain a stable healthy bmi for over a decade. last time i was hospitalized in a refeeding program was when i was 23.
iām 40 now. raynauds for 3 years or a little more. and extreme em (mainly my face and hands some on my feet and knees) for a year
tho i had flushed cheeks as a child so often i was seen by a neurologist who said it must be migraines
i grew out of the childhood flushes and started my eating disorder. no flushes in my 20s. tho i was often ridiculously cold when at a low weight.
thatās interesting what you are thinking ā¦ about the connection. i always knew i had bad circulation and figured it was due to anorexia. but now that my weight has been healthyā¦ itās not explaining the em and raynauds!
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I have noticed a similar thing with myself. Easy blusher as a kid. During eating disorder phase, pale / no EM / no blushing. I am at a healthy weight now and had no eating disorder for the past 5 or so years (EM came 2 years ago).
I have noticed that during eating disorder, I (and others) rarely got sick/rarely had acne/etc, like my body was conserving energy and didnāt want to mount an immune response or do anything crazy. After normalized eating my body could have immune responses, etcā¦ including I guess the swelling + burning fun of EM ha.
Perhaps the same brain characteristics that create the stage for eating disorders (I think the pattern is something like perfectionism, obsession, depression, anxiety, etcā¦) also play a hand in developing EM ā¦ thatās just pure speculation though. For me it is easy for anxiety / negative thinking / obsessions to become rooted in my brain if I donāt do anything to stop them, sort of like how EM pain quickly become rooted + self-perpetuating ā¦
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Cherry and standing_cat I feel like yours are the rare discussion of anorexia/eating disorders on this site, or really anywhere in relation to EM/raynauds that Iāve encountered. Cherry, Iām 45, very similar situation to what youāve described. Yes, my weight is the most stable/normal heathy bmi since I was 22, but my EM progresses. I always thought that once I got into real recovery for anorexia my EM and raynauds would improve. While the raynauds is no longer the issue it used to be, I still canāt let my feet freeze, like on my bike in 55 degrees I have to wear cycling boots made for Alaska types of temps, or else I end up with freezer types of burns even though Iām relieved during the ride as my feet are super cold. Itās rough though because after about 15 miles (1 hour) in the boots my feet flare and I end up with heat types of burns. Clearly Iām still the exercise addict Iāve always been (serious athlete all my life). Either way, Iām suffering from the burns for weeks, more flares, so much night time and work pain. I keep my house freezing, too scared to warm my system up. I have a nice layer of fat on my body, finally! But my feet (and hands and sometimes ears) are just thinking for themselves. Itās really a comfort to read both your posts. Thank you. Oh! And standing_cat, me too, great skin, people thinking my rosey āflawlessā skin is a sign of like youth or good genes or whatever, though Iām like, well look downā¦And same, I used to/still think my EM patterns mimicked starving then finally eating or binging then purging and starving, etc. the way the blood restricts then rushesā¦it basically came on during those behaviors but never stopped even when I learned to eat digest eat digest eat digest, yay for that, but still the Feet act like an eating disorder.
Monkey -
I definitely understand being an exercise addictā¦ I was one for most of my teens + twenties ā¦ Interesting how you put it, that EM patterns mimicked starving / bingeing the way blood restricts then rushes ā¦ Before EM onset, maybe a several years prior to onset ā I noticed that if I exercised hard, then my skin would become pale and get blue lips (exercise shunts blood to muscles + away from skin ā¦ my doctor said I was just doing this very efficiently since I was basically healthy). The pale skin / blue lips would last a couple hours post-exercise. That was it though. Then, at some later point, I noticed that I would get the pale skin thing / blue-ish lips ā¦ but then 3 hours post exercise Iād get intense burning of my face/ears. The intensity would correlate to how hard I exercised / how āpaleā I was prior. The burning would last for several hours and really that was the thing to force me to keep my exercise to low-intensity only.
All that was before EM onset though. Then a few years later, every night my face + ears + sometimes hands would get the insane burning / oven feeling. Even though I wasnāt exercising at all.
I do think in my case the vasospasm (constriction then dilation of blood vessels) phenomenon contributes to at least some of my EM flares. Unfortunately it seems like any attempt to control the blood vessels or stabilize them, doesnāt always make things better. For example, propranolol + clonidine seem to err on the side of constriction, so I get ātoo coldā extremities, setting me up for painful dilation later. Conversely, amlodipine + low dose viagra seem to err on the side of dilation, which makes anxiety-induced flares terrible (maybe those types of flares donāt involve vasospasm, only extreme dilation?)
Anyway, I generally think my EM is linked to eating disorder history somehow, but maybe that is only my way to punish myself mentally for going down the anorexia path to begin with way back when!
Anyone who has (or has had) an eating disorder, anyone who has experience with EM reallllly has my sympathies + I feel an automatic connection to them ā¦ I feel like both of them have taken so much from my life.
Yes, to everything youāve described (brilliantly btw). Itās really difficult for me to disconnect my EM from my eating disorder history, though thereās no āempiricalā evidence. Of course, even if the link was certain, moving forward hereās still no solution. Itās painful all I lost to anorexia but that, too, I have to remind myself, wasnāt something I could control. I was in therapy for 15 years for it and I wanted so badly to be done with it. It was for sure hard wired in me. Like the EM I suppose.
thank you so much for sharing.
i used to isolate so much because of my eating disorder. i used to punish myself with my eating disorder behaviours. iāve worked a better part of my life trying to overcome thatā¦ now only to feel like my em is my punishment. and now i isolate myself just as much do to the pain/discomfort and embarrassment from my flushing.
i eat a very restricted diet in part to regulate my weight but also with the intention of controlling my flushing. mind you, it seems to make no difference to the severity of my burning but iām desperately trying to do what i can to āfix itā.
i realize recently it may not be because iām actually eatingā¦ but rather just sitting at a table with my feet hanging down causes blood to shift and get stuck in my feet and face.
itās becoming such a mental/emotional challenge not just a physical one.
Huge emotional challenge for me too. I relate completely to what youāre describing. My life has changed severely. Iām trying to adapt to being this wayāmy hands and feet and even lower legs are incredibly and obviously bizarre looking now so Iām really having to adapt to this freakishness. F course the pain is the most impactful, making me even more isolated. Sitting like youāre describing is almost worse than standing for me. I spent a bunch of $$ on a lazy boy recliner and Iām in it whenever Iām working at home or watching TV or whatever. I have a fairly restricted ish dietāI donāt have any āwillpowerā issues 
; I havenāt eaten processed carbs in a million yrs, no flour or rice based carbs, not a paleo thing necessarily but still a very high fat, lots of plant based, meat too but usually sustainable (ethical issues there). Iāve overcome a lot of eating issuesāthatās an understatementābut Iām still me and donāt touch some nice looking food b/c Iām just wired not to, so it just looks like something to appreciate from a distance. My weight is healthy though, so I donāt have to be embarrassed about that at least (being underweight that is). My feet are wrecked and even though I have spent a lot of tears feeling responsible, I also know that childhood sexual abuse and my personality and my parentsā influence (unintended) drove me to having a severe eating disorder and thatās an illness just like EM, etc. itās not your fault. Like my husband says, we could have lived a charmed life and this may have happened anyway. Youāre beautiful. Thanks for sharing w me. I hope we keep communicating.