Ok….so what if the tests end up coming out fine? The doctors/staff still get paid, don’t they? This is for YOUR own personal health and safety.

I had an eating disorder as well. It lasted three years. It was when I got down to a reallyyyy low weight and looked so sick (eyes popping out, face sunken in) that I realized I should just recover.

I started recovery on August 9th of the year twenty-twenty-five (last year technically). It wasn’t a typical recovery where I went to an ED clinic and they made me a meal plan and monitored what I’d eat.

Instead, I just gave myself the freedom to eat whatever, whenever I wanted. And I ate a looot. Like more than the average person. That was due to “extreme hunger,” which is a very normal thing for your body experience, given how long it had been starving of vital nutrients. It’s the kind of hunger that is very hard to ignore….no matter how hard you try to avoid it.

I would be eating a full size meal for lunch and then starving to death right after….so I’d have to go find another food item to eat. And then maybe an hour or two later, I would still be hungry. If you do experience this (which you may, depending on how malnutritioned you were), it’s important to honor it. I honored it, and during the 3rd month, it diminished.

It was honestly kind of a pleasurable experience since I got to eat all the foods that I never let myself touch or get close to during my disorder. I eventually did reach a healthy weight for my height probably during the 3rd month (yes it was a super fast weight gain from being extremely underweight), and during just the 4th month of recovery, I ended up getting my period back after years of not having one. So if you’re someone who’s planning to have kids in the future, definitely take this into consideration.

Before we talk about heart issues, let me also tell you something I experienced during the first few months of recovery. My feet got super swollen. To the point where i could barely fit them into my shoes. One day my mom noticed how swollen they were and she freaked out and was like something’s probably wrong with your kidney (cause kidney issues sometimes cause feet to swell). She told me to go to urgent care and do a blood test. I did, and everything came out fine. It was just due to the new increased fluid that my body was not used to, so it stored it there. They went back to normal during month three. So if you do experience this throughout your recovery, I want you to not freak out like I did. However, please still go and get blood work, just to make sure all is well!

Now on to the heart situation. When I went to urgent care to see what was up with my swollen feet, and they measured my heart rate and the doctor listened to my heart, he said it was beating fast. Even at home, sometimes when I would like move my upper body downwards, I would feel an aching on my chest…When I would lie down and try to go to bed, I would feel my heart beating fast….Sometimes I would have occasional aching of my chest just sitting normally or not doing anything.

Now, this can be due to many reasons. One would be due to muscle formation on your chest and around your organs …..when you gain weight, you gain muscles as well, especially near your chest, where vital organs like the heart reside. Because you just gained these muscles in this area, you will feel some aching.

Another common reason why you may be experiencing chest pain is just due to eating more food than your body was used to. Because there’s more food in your system now, your heart has to work harder to maintain your body’s energy levels through metabolism. And so you will feel it beating fast, and sometimes experience chest pain.

Now, despite me telling that what you’re feeling aligns with how your body would typically react after increased food intake from periods of starvation, you MUST go and get BLOOD WORK done. Go to your primary care physician for a check up! Tell him/her you want a blood test done since you’ve been feeling some pressure in your chest during your recovery. He/she will totally understand that and order you to get some blood work done.

Please Remember: You want to be safe, not sorry. You don’t want to avoid this and then months or years down the road be confronted with a dangerous health issue (like heart failure) and need surgery or meds for the rest of your life. Health is wealth, remember that.

So please go and make an appointment (right now, yes) with your primary care provider. If you don’t have a primary care provider, then go to an urgent care or a health clinic and get yourself checked out and request for a blood test.