im not a psych but i think you can be diagnosed since you were at one point underweight from it and it would prob be considered in partial remission.

 

yeah, i asked chat gpt ai (i don't trust everything it says tbh) but apparently since i was underweight for a few months before my b/p caused weight gain, it still counts??? idk though

 

One time I did get diagnosed with AN at a BMI of 25.0, but it was by a doctor who really wanted me to just go away and didn't even ask my weight nor BMI, while I was wearing baggy clothes, so perhaps he thought I'm underweight? They use ICD-10 in my country, so it should've been AAN or EDNOS in my case.

I've seen people on here saying they were diagnosed with AN instead of AAN despite being healthy weight simply due to having history of being underweight. If I recall correctly, ICD-11 says AN-B/P diagnosis can be changed to BN diagnosis after a year (?) of being weight restored, before that it should be noted as AN-B/P in partial remission I believe, but I don't know the DSM-V standards for it.

 

One time I did get diagnosed with AN at a BMI of 25.0, but it was by a doctor who really wanted me to just go away and didn't even ask my weight nor BMI, while I was wearing baggy clothes, so perhaps he thought I'm underweight? They use ICD-10 in my country, so it should've been AAN or EDNOS in my case.

I've seen people on here saying they were diagnosed with AN instead of AAN despite being healthy weight simply due to having history of being underweight. If I recall correctly, ICD-11 says AN-B/P diagnosis can be changed to BN diagnosis after a year (?) of being weight restored, before that it should be noted as AN-B/P in partial remission I believe, but I don't know the DSM-V standards for it.

im sorry about that experience w/ youre doc, that is so irresponsible!

also i think it is because of history of being uw, i was uw this year until summer started where i gained to a normal bmi. also i think restriction is more frequent than those with BN? idek because rn i have 2 different diagnoses from 2 different places: psychiatrist-BN, treatment center- AN b/p (assuming what i saw were my diagnoses)

i guess that makes me bulimarexic lolll

 

I think that's how it goes. I'm not a psych either but if you were previously underweight you'd still be AN, not A-AN, which I think is for people who meet all the criteria for AN but despite losing weight have not reached underweight yet.

I've also heard about people being diagnosed with BN versus AN-b/p and vice versa based on behaviours (like restricting more than b/p or not b/p very frequently as seen in BN) but I believe in most cases only the weight matters between the two

 

i agree, i did some research and i think that's true.

i have both BN and AN-b/p from 2 different places so...guess im both😶

 

Oh, on the other hand I just want to add that ICD-11 and DSM-V got rid of Asperger's and generally merged all the pervasive developmental disorders into ASD precisely because it so often happened that the diagnosises were inconsistent and the same patient could receive Asperger's diagnosis one day, but infantile autism diagnosis another or get those two from two different doctors, so considering that inconsistency and overall lack of proof for those being actually separate they made it into a spectrum.

I can't help but think that similar thing might happen to AN-B/P and BN at some point honestly, because the diagnostic crossover is massive and I've seen several studies suggesting they might just represent different stadiums of the same disorder (as well as some studies saying the same about AN-R and AN-B/P to be fair). Of course it is important for insurance-related reasons and overall treatment planning to specify if the patient is underweight (and therefore at a higher risk of certain complications, requiring weight restoring etc.), but I feel like they could end up turning it into some sort of spectrum with additional specifiers eventually.

i dont think BN and AN-b/p are that similar of disorders. i was diagnosed with the latter at one point and its much closer with AN-r (i mean they are subtypes of the same disorder anyway). like in my mind AN-b/p is more body image focused while BN is more of an actual binge disorder. at least in my experience, the binging with AN-b/p was mainly just a response from malnutrition from not eating enough, and then the purging obviously followed. so like it is still restrictive before it is a binge disorder. from what i have heard a lot of ppl with BN dont even lose weight over time. i dont think it would make sense to combine these into the same label when they are very different disorders with different treatment.

 

If we assume AN-B/P to be of primarily restrictive then I agree, but at least by what I've seen in the manuals, theoretically the distinction is made due to the weight factor and there is a significant diagnostic crossover from AN-B/P to BN over time. You're right about there being several differences in practice though (at least in some cases, because I've also seen people on here who were diagnosed with AN-B/P and have said that their symptoms were pretty much identical to those of BN patients, as well as I have seen studies in which AN-B/P patients ended up exhibiting symptoms (both ED-wise and considering more general psychiatric pathology) more aligned with those of BN patients than patients diagnosed with AN-R, so the similarity cannot be entirely false either).

Perhaps maybe adopting a similar model to the one ICD-11 approached personality disorders with would be accurate? They stopped categorizing different personality disorders into seperate diagnosises and instead went for diagnosing just a personality disorder and then specifying the severity and most predominant traits/patterns.

Of course I'm not an authority of any kind, just a diagnostic manuals enjoyer and an avid research reader with some academic background regarding psychology and history of psychiatry who's not exactly fond of the idea of separating AN vs AAN, and AN-B/P vs BN based on weight alone, which to my knowledge seems to be the case both in theory, as per manuals, and in practice of at least some diagnosticians. That said, I'm nowhere near knowledgeable enough to give any definitive statements on such issues, so it was moreso just my (perhaps somewhat hopeful) intuition, additionally driven by the fact that ICD-11 in general tends to adopt more spectrum-like models , so it doesn't feel far-fetched to me that the next edition could take similar approach when classifying eating disorders, especially considering high diagnostic crossover rates between some of them.

EDIT: Btw, I believe I've seen a study that examined whether it would be reasonable to distinguish AN-B and AN-P from AN-B&P, and the results have shown that AN-B and AN-P are both in fact incredibly similar in their symptoms an general presentation to AN-B/P, and, if I remember correctly, resembled BN patients in certain (again, both ED-related and more general aspects) crucial areas too, thus differantiating all of them from AN-R patients regardless of whether they even binge eat at all.

 

I don’t know if this counts as a formal diagnosis, but I lost like 80+ pounds in 6 months from an obese weight to bmi 21. I got put with a whole team, told I had to stop losing immediately, weight and blood pressure monitored every 2 weeks, all the stuff. I was never formally diagnosed with anorexia, but i’ve been at a healthy weight for a year and a half now and am still monitored and work with a nutritionist (I’m hiding a relapse now so idk what will happen at my next appointment)