i know that they won't make me lose weight but i'll take 2-3 laxatives after a binge because having food in my stomach is triggering so i want my stomach to be empty asap. also, i get really bloated for days after a binge and laxatives help with that too

 

i always lose at least one pound afterwards, and it gives me that "empty" feeling i desire.

 

That pound though is probably water/food weight and would have been lost anyway. But I do understand

 

IBS-c. Pooping every week and a half is kinda.. not ideal lol. The food weight stays for DAYS so I wanna get it out ASAP to see my actual weight!

 

I haven't used lax in like.. 2 weeks? I usually lax once a week though bc I have such a hard time pooping and I swear constipation hurts way worse than lax cramps sometimes.

 

i’ve been abusing on lax for years and i literally cannot shit if i don’t abuse on them , ive tried to recover from or getting help from medical teams but i can have constipation for as long as theee weeks and at this point i’ve gave up , i don’t abuse them as much but i rely on them to just simply poop 🤦🏼‍♀️

 

scared of the food weight.

 

Yeah, I have to agree with you, they are pointless. I know a girl I've been in hospital with a couple of times has a colostomy bag because she messed up her intestines through lax abuse. So even when I want that empty feeling of a good lax session, I just think of the colostomy bag and it makes me think twice, also the rebound constipation puts me off too

 

That’s exactly what got me to stop abusing them. I watched a doco on YT abt ppl that abused laxatives. At the beginning it documented their daily routine then in the 2nd half they documented the visit to a dr & told all the irreversible damage they’d done to their bodies. Some of them had done so much damage that a section their bowel/intestines had actually died. For the majority of the ppl in the doco the dr told them that they will now have to rely on those excessive amounts of lax just to poop as the damage is now permanent

I stopped taking them completely after that, I didn’t want to end up like them. I started using them again this yr but only take them if I’m rly constipated & I stick to the recommended dose. Ig u could say watching that doco was a life saver, I think if I hadn’t of come across it I would more than likely still be abusing them

 

I started taking them so that I could feel empty. So stupid, I know.
Now I take them just so that I can take a dump. Thankfully I never took more than two pills at a time but I still can’t go unless I take one once a week which really sucks. They are the stimulant ones too which I know are the worst kind.
I’m not sure how to wean myself off them or if it’s even possible (please feel free to respond with any advice you have on how to do that) 🤍

 

I have found that a combination of movicol and a non stimulant softener works well, you just don't get the explosive emptying effect. Just my personal experience, you should definitely see a dr if you can.

 

i just need to feel empty again, the feeling of food in me and being bloated is so awful and triggering and makes me hate myself so much. i know lax won't make me lose real weight, i only take them when after purging via vomiting anyway (because i can't reliably shit on my own) there's some stuff in me i couldn't get out. i weigh myself way too often so i panic knowing there's food weight--and liquid weight--still in me. i really don't want to be addicted to laxatives but unfortunately my b/p cycling is not getting any better lately. i never take more than 2-3 in 24 hours and never solely purge via lax, it's more of a last resort

 

I don't want to weigh myself until after I've had my liquid shite, it makes me feel like weighing after lax is my 'true weight'.

 

14 year's lax abuse can't use the toilet on my own anymore

 

I really try to stick to only using lax when I'm constipated or so bloated I just can't deal with it. I hate being bloated and I like the feeling of being empty.

 

This might be triggering as it "criticizes" the use of laxatives and excessive workout.
I am typing as it comes so if I made a mistake or something sounds insensitive, I apologize, this is not my intention.

------------------

I read a thread about "purging via working out" and it sent me back to the beginning of my recovery days.
I remember that as I was recovering I started thinking "rationally" about certain things I did.
And from everything I did, two of them made no sense and were the ones I recovered from first: the use of laxatives and excessive workout.

Now, excessive workout makes some kind of sense. The idea is to burn the calories of the binge and it can work if you don't have a huge caloric surplus.
But in my case, my binge could send me to a 6k+ calories surplus! There is no way on Earth I could burn 6k+ excess calories in a few hours, daily.
Like I remember watching the 10k calories challenge and it made me sit down and count how much calories my binge was and I was already over the 10k.
And it is not just that I could not "outrun my binges" but my body is already struggling digesting all that food I had, the digestive system need a good blood flow and rest... but here I am feeling pregnant doing my hours long workout, exhausting my body even more.

But the one that made the least sense was the use of laxatives.
I binged. I absorbed a caloric surplus. It is now in my system and my body will absorb those calories now.
Why the hell did I think having laxatives would help?
I genuinely don't remember except maybe for trying to get rid of the food sitting in my stomach? Try to have a faster BM?
I realized how I was ruining my guts health over nothing. Laxatives never cancelled a binge at all, it did absolutely nothing but hurt my guts.
The calories have been absorbed. Did I expect to get rid of the calories to come out as well when using the bathroom?
Because they didn't.

Obviously, using lax for actual constipation is something else

Empty my stomach

 

I just like to feel completely empty so I take diuretic, lax and exercise a bit to lose any water weight

 

I take them to help initiate a bowel movement when I am constipated. And I take them wisely, not in abuse/excess. They help with moving waste but yes they are pointless for people who believe that they are genuinely losing weight with them.

The empty feeling is a common theme though - it’s very clear that the feeling of food and waste inside the body is quite uncomfortable, and so the discovery of laxatives can become addictive to people with EDs.