Treading carefully: anorexia nervosa and gastroparesis

Right up until I was diagnosed with severe gastroparesis, I could tell that most, if not all of the doctors I saw suspected that I was anorexic. A few years ago, I was "healthy", albeit quite overweight with a BMI of around 30. In October, it was 19, and today, it's 16.

"Do you exercise excessively?", "Are you afraid of weight gain?", "Do you count calories and restrict your intake?", "Is your self-esteem correlated with your body weight?" 

To all these questions, I always say the same thing - no. However, it's difficult, because to some extent, I do restrict my intake, for the very reason that eating too much makes me sick. Of course, I would eat normal portions if I could tolerate it, but because I know what they're getting at, I say no anyway.

I know I've written about prejudice and chronic illness before, but I must reiterate how frustrating it is to want to be somewhere that you can't, just because of people's assumptions.

I must highlight that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being anorexic, and that I'm not trying to make mockery of people who suffer from anorexia nervosa or other eating disorders, but am merely speaking about how it's used as an "easy label". For both anorexia nervosa sufferers and people with gastrointestinal disorders, it's a shame that far too many doctors are so quick to "diagnose" anorexia nervosa.

The sad fact here is that there's nothing that we, as patients, can do about people making assumptions. Assumptions are the reason that I chose to leave my previous gastroenterologist, since he made me very nervous and I was worrying so much before, during and after his appointments that we were never going to get to the bottom of my problems. In fact, there did come a point when I began to wonder if I was indeed anorexic. Here we are, with one of, if not the country's leading doctor of neurogastroenterology, and straight away, he is "teasing" for underlying problems (I quote).

Similarly, what if I just have a small appetite or a super-high metabolic rate? I am certain that there are people in a healthy existence who are slightly underweight but don't have anorexia nervosa. All I'm trying to say here is that while patients with functional and psychological problems may present with similar symptoms, it is not only foolish, but in fact irresponsible, to jump to conclusions and make assumptions.