Still FEASTing after all these years

I'm feeling fairly old these days. I have grey hair and grandchildren and my response to the recent re-branding of BEAT is the same as my response to many a re-brand "I remember the last time..." 

In spite of feeling old I'm having to work harder in my paid employment than ever before. Instead of winding down for the last couple of years before retirement a combination of the raising of the pension age and pressures on all public services mean that I'm now in the middle management role that I have successfully avoided for years.

I've always been pretty sceptical and by now my cynicism arteries are well and truly hardened. I know there's no magic wand to cure eating disorders and that even when evidence based treatments are available they are often offered at a sub optimal dose in inappropriate conditions. I'm also well aware now, indeed I had my suspicions decades ago, that I'm probably as likely to find helpful advice on how to live with and love more than one of my close relatives here as at an eating disorders conference.

And yet today this tired, cynical old woman was inspired. At an eating disorders conference.

I went to half of a day of this. It isn't fair to comment on the conference because I only saw the tail end of it. I don't think it presented a very positive or game-changingly useful picture but I may well be wrong.

What I can comment on was how delightful it was to meet with a fellow parent and discuss FEAST and the forum, to share how useful the science presented there was to educated parents looking for real information. It's easy to get blase about what's out there - well it is if you are as old and cynical as me. However there still isn't enough support and real information for parents. F.E.A.S.T. wasn't there in our early days. I am glad that it is now. I know that it needs to be for a long time into the future.

Half way through my half day a clinician who I had been half avoiding asked me "are you still FEASTing" I am proud to have given a whole hearted answer of "YES"

another reblog

link

hints and tips

Logging on to Twitter (something I'm not very good at using) this morning I was faced with this.


 

 Do they have any tips on how I can reduce the risk of my child developing mania or asthma?

There ARE things parents, schools, medics, society can do to reduce the risks of all three, but do we see non-specialists confidently sharing them with the world in order to be helpful to all? No, but then again Eating Disorders aren't like other illnesses, or are they?

Someone is wrong on the Internet

 One of the side effects of frantically googling for information on a specific subject is finding "related articles". When looking for the useful study presented at last year's EDIC instead I found this

It's on a site that certainly should be reputable. It's a report on a study by some pretty major figures in the ED world so what's not to like? Well quite a bit to my mind. OK, as a parent of a child who developed an eating disorder I'm defensive. I made a lot of mistakes during her childhood and I regret them all. However I don't think that, on their own, they caused her eating disorder and I thought that such ideas had gone years ago. Yet here's a study looking at only such "risk factors". All links mentioned  (and it does explain that they are not proved) are between potentially fatal illness and parenting and there's nothing about the possible genetic and other environmental influences that may influence the development of little understood and woefully under-researched disorders. Those involved in eating disorders "Prevention" might be as disturbed as those who debate with them. Negative energy balance is tangentally linked, in the "related articles" which all explain what a good thing it is.

REALLY?

well doh!

This isn't really a post. It's more of a repost of someone else's blog, found via a retweet of the same.

I like this piece, although I do wish it didn't end as an advert.

It reminded me of a study I heard about at the EDIC conference last year (Recognising and Managing Physical Problems on a Specialist Eating Disorder Unit) which I can only find in this very difficult format. As the title explains it's about the physical consequences of long term Anorexia Nervosa. They're dire. My first reaction was "well doh of course they are". My reaction now is "why the hell is  this important study so difficult to find. Every clinician should know this and they obviously don't"

What right do I have....

Having hardly touched this blog in the last year this is my second post in as many days and I have ideas for a couple more.

They're all on the same theme. I'm not an expert on the subect. I haven't had an eating disorder and I'm not a professional in the field (or indeed in any field). I get angered and enthused and excited and frustrated in my capacity as a mother, nothing else. I know some stuff about other subjects too and perhaps I'll post a whole series of blatherings about other subjects that I've learned about through loved ones but for now I'll stick with this one. It matters very much to me. It matters to a lot of my friends. I was conforming to the norm I would have done it all last week.  but I didn't. Maybe I'll finish my drafts on Lent the week after Easter.

Happy Anniversary

There are reasons, if not excuses, for this sudden blog after so long an absence. It's Lent. It was EDAW last week. It is the end of the financial year.   If it hadn't been this tome it would have been one of the others that is currently in drafts, probably going nowhere. I can't promise either to keep up my blogging or shut up, but here, for today, I go....
 
10 years ago I petitioned the Prime Minister to give more resources to the treatment of eating disorders. I know it was 10 years ago because the completed petition was sent to "Tony Blair" and answered by "Gordon Brown" All trace of the wording and reply has been archived to the uttermost depths of the Internet and I certainly can't find them. It was a general "give us (meaning primary care, secondary care, CAMHS, AMHS, parents and patients) more money" request and recieved a general "the government cares a lot about young people (no mention of persons over 18) and will of course invest" sort of answer. These were, after all, the days when we still remembered that Things Can Only Get Better

100s of petitions later we have a government that claims to have made that investment.You can sign a petition if you want to to hold them (or rather some of the clinicians they try to use as pawns in their games) to account on it if you want. Things honestly seem to have got a lot worse for many people but there are developments in community services and some of the general promises made by dear Gordon to me are being paid lip service at least.

Would I do it again? If I was newer to the issue, yes, probably. Now I'm too long in the tooth and cynical. I'm also hopeful that a decade on there is more that a mere parent can do, that there are better ways mums and dads (and partners and siblings) can get involved both in the treatment of their own loved ones and in the politics of health. Or am I being as naive as I was then?