i don't understand why laxatives are bad?

[lexi1000]

I'm really confused because I am quite young (17) and have been making myself sick since i was about 12 and for the past five years the one thing I have found which works in maintaing my weight against my binge eating is laxatives and excessive exercise. I know people say laxatives are bad and that you don't lose weight with them but that confuses me because I can eat around 5 or 6000 calories in once sitting or throughout the day and as a female of around 5 foot 6/7 my weight fluctuates up and down but I am always 5 pound give or take from 9 stone and therefore I know I am a healthy weight. I do exercise a lot but i know it's the laxatives which maintain my weight and help me not put on too much despite eating ridiculous amounts. Can anybody explain to me how it it isn't the laxatives that help?

[avisg]

First off laxatives are not making you lose weight . If this had not happened already pretty soon you will not be able to go without useing one. It would be the vomiting and exercise that are maintaining and taking weight off. PLZ PLZ get some help, do you parents know what you are doing. You need to start looking into ways to get better hun .....Trust me when I say this is not the way you want to spend your life.
avis

[anotherfinemess]

The weight you lose with laxatives is water weight only, everything else has already been absorbed by the time it hits your large intestine. Along with all that water goes all your electrolytes (sodium, potassium, etc) so you get very dehydrated.  Dehydration can cause serious heart arrhythmias, chemical imbalances and, in some cases, death. This is nothing to fool around with.  It is very serious and can cause all sorts of permanent kidney and heart problems.  Don't roll the dice with your health (and your life)!

[classactsonly]

I was in the Airforce many years and struggled with my weight.  I soon started to take laxatives to control my weight. I started at recommended dosages and increased as I became immune to certain brands. After many years I consumed a whole bottle of carters laxatives (72 pills)  I was to afraid to go to the hospital as I would have been punished by my commander.  I suffered for several days.  I had hypothermia and had to sleep in a tub of hot water to get warm.  I had a fever and spasms that made me feel like my insides were against the back of my spine. I was trying to vomit but of course there was nothing to come up.  I soon became immune to all of them and started throwing up as soon as they hit my throat.  When I went off of them i would gain all the water back (around 10 lbs) and would not have a bowel movement for over three weeks. I had circles under my eyes, poor skin tone, low potassium, I felt week and faint alot.  I ran across a doctor during desert storm that believed me and helped me get off the laxatives.  He actually gave me a laxative called magnesiumsitrate.  (I think) It was carbonated drink)  he slowly weened me off the laxatives.  I have been free from them for 22 years now.  You need help with your eating disorder and to regain control of  your overeating impulse and to repair the internal physical damage these laxatives may have done.  See a trusted doctor to steer you in the right direction.  The ten pounds you are fighting will come off when you get to the root of the bingeing

[stlmom]

You are hurting your internal organs! I would recommend  a treatment center (but if you have no insurance that would be a problem). Here is another suggestion. Find a very supportive family member/parent or even a school teacher to explain what is happening to you. This is VERY serious and you need to make a decision to ight these ED thoughts and behaviors. Then allow someone you trust (hopefully a parent) to monitor you after meals for up to 2 hours while using the bathroom. I know that this may seem like an invasion of your privacy but it is exactly what is done in $200.00 per day treatment centers to save you life! Also .....remain on "community space" the same amount of time after all meals...around family/friends and keep your mind focused on other things or journal about this experience and triggers. Your doctor may be able to help with medications to calm these triggers but you are ultimately the only one that can fight ED. Tums and gas- X may help after meals with the feeling of fullness but you must 'fight the urges' to purge. They do subside with time. Please be honest with others and get a plan in place daily to help you fight this fight. It may save your life!!!!

I know....I work in an acute treatment faculity and it is not easy to get through, but I've seen miracles...I pray you become one of the miracles.....BELIEVE!...you ARE worth it!

[disguise]

Laxatives is simply bad because prolonged use of it may result to gastric irritation and consatipation.

[quinster]

they do not work to lose weight.

Lax's are designed to work opn your colan. By the time your food reaches there you have absorbed all the calories anyway. If anything they severely dehydrate you, so that next time you eat/drink you become bloated anyway. not to mention how embarrassing they can be, especially if in a year you sh*t your pants because you have abused them.

truly, do not dabble into lax's. they do nothing to lose weight and you still absorb any calories!

[krzeaz]

Laxatives may dehydrate you and you could lose weight but also you are losing nutrition.  The scariest thing is how it ages the body, making a person look older than their years.  Once the body is addicted to laxatives, it loses the normal urge to go to the bathroom.  In eating disorder treatment, my roommate had to go thru re-learning how to go without laxatives.  They gave her fiber supplements and it took a long time for her body to readjust to going normally without laxatives.  There are a lot of vitamins and minerals necessary for good health which go straight out of the body during diarrhea.  Imagine not getting enough protein and losing your hair or having wrinkled skin at a very young age.  Starvation affects the body that way.  
The sad thing is, our culture encourages losing weight and being overly thin, even encouraging people to not love and respect themselves and their bodies.  From help in Overeaters Anonymous, counseling, and books like Geneen Roth's "Feeding the Hungry Heart" i am now able to weigh a normal amount and not purge any more.  I had a lot of help changing, but if i can do it anyone can.

[chigirl29]

Your heart is basically a sodium/potassium ion pump--you need them both for it to work.  Dehydration and the imbalance you create in your body can cause cardiac problems as well as problems with peristalsis--normal contractions of the intestines.  Your intestines will become lax and require more and more laxatives for it to work.

You will have to retrain your bowel if you keep this up and if you do not die from other complications first.  I remember a girl in the AirForce who kept doing this and she almost had renal failure.

Her skin turned green and grey.

That was a good look.

Cut out the laxatives and eat healthy foods that promote healthy bowel function.

[jo929]

after taking laxitives so long and as you get older the damsge to your body and also if you live long enough you will have no control over your bowels they will move and you cant do anything about it i could go on and on but evry one has told you most of this so take thei advice and go to a dr if you want to get well you think you are fine now but later may be to late.                    lots luck  jo