Recovered after 5 years and a half

Hmmm. Okay, so I went out today and bought a neti pot, fresh garlic and non-iodized salt. I'm going to be starting this over the next day or two (I would start it tonight but I forgot to pick up a mini strainer to ensure that no garlic bits get into the finished water mixture, so still have to pick that up.)

Honestly, I'm not expecting miracles. While I'm hopeful and like almost everyone here, I'm always looking for a quick-fix "cure", but personally, I just don't think it's a sinus issue. I think my DP/DR is mental rather than physical. I have awful OCD and anxiety issues and I doubt a sinus blockage causes intrusive and existential thoughts, hehe.

As far as my sinuses, I don't have allergies and I rarely get sick. My nose does tend to feel "stuffed" off and on, but it's not something that's problematic and it never runs. However I will agree with one thing: when DP/DR started almost two years ago for me, I thought it was the flu or an ear infection at first. I went from being fine to feeling "stuffed" "clogged" or "blocked"....like my perception was off. Similar to when your ears get clogged at certain altitudes.

But, I'm willing to give this a try and will report how I'm feeling while doing this rinse each day.

time2wakeup said:

Me too!!! I've read that recovering from an eating disorder can cause leaky gut - because your gut is in such a bad state from the ED that rapidly reintroducing food can really tear it up, I guess? I was basically anorexic in college and drinking lots of coffee. After college I tried prozac to try to calm down (I was also starting to eat normally around this time). Then after just a few weeks on prozac, the DP started and never went away. And then after a few months on prozac I started to get AWFUL stomach pains, and that's why I quit the prozac - I think it was ripping my gut up because my stomach was so unused to metabolizing anything - just one of many theories I have I guess. I totally think it could be leaky gut/leaky brain for us! You def need to clean up your diet - I only started to feel better once I switched to keto (not a triggering diet for me because you can eat as much as you want, just don't eat carby stuff), and then felt even better after quitting caffeine and alcohol. I can't tolerate meds/supplements.

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Oh wow! I thought I was the only one here who has dealt with an eating disorder! I was bulimic for 4 years - started with laxative abuse then binging/purging. I would binge on 4000+ calories daily then purge it all with flushing (purging until you're just vomiting water). Around the holidays 2015, I tried self-recovery for the sake of myself and my daughter using what I like to call the "scared straight" method. I would force myself to read stories of people getting sick or dying from bulimia. And while it worked on getting me to stop purging, that's also around the time the nightly panic attacks started. I started getting panic attacks over my health, afraid I was going to have a heart attack, etc. There was a point I thought I had diabetes, as funny as that sounds. I went to urgent care like 3 or 4 times around this time - everything came back fine and they tested for everything.

About a month later, the DP/DR started and I remember asking my brother (who's a RN) why I felt "dizzy and dreamy" and he said "it's probably because of your eating disorder, you could die at any moment". Suffice to say, it only made my anxiety worse hearing that! Haha. Then March 2016, I was washing dishes and had a passing violent intrusive thought and almost like a light switch, the OCD and DP/DR basically stayed with me 24/7 since! September 2016, I started taking a supplement for OCD called inositol and it worked wonders.....for about 8 months. This past summer, everything got bad again for some reason. Though this time around, I'm mainly dealing with DP/DR rather than intrusive thoughts and OCD.

So for me....part of me wonders if my mental issues are a result of hormones (gaining a lot of weight really quickly post-recovery), the panic attacks, some mysterious irreversible damage I've done from being bulimic for 4+ years, diet (I eat lots of crap junk food) or lifestyle (spending a lot of time alone, I'm a mom to a toddler, bored a lot, etc).

time2wakeup said:

Yep, same...I have a lot of theories about how my DP could be a physical issue (leaky gut caused by refeeding and medication, which led to "leaky brain," and lymph and liver congestion, etc etc), BUT I feel like at the same time it could totally be a mental issue. However, if it was simply "anxiety," then psych meds would actually help to alleviate my DP, right? Psych meds just make me more spaced out and make the physical issues worse (weight gain, etc). And yeah I also spend a lot of time alone (I work from home), so then I obsess about this a lot and just get more and more confused...

But yeah if it has anything to do with the bulimia, then no, you haven't caused any irreversible damage. The body is very good at healing itself - you just have to figure out what the problem is - but I would definitely at least try to get off gluten, sugar, caffeine, and alcohol...all things that will cause more inflammation and keep the gut from healing...(if that's part of the problem)

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Totally agree with you! I also work from home and spend a lot of time obsessing over how I'm feeling/thinking and I believe the obsessiveness is keeping this "thing" around. But there are many times I'm like "no....this has to be physical". I too have been on meds that did NOTHING. Was on Prozac for 8 weeks: made my DP/DR worse. Then was on Buspirone (anti-anxiety) for a month or so: no relief whatsoever, it was like taking a TicTac...did nothing at all.

Taking inositol helped last year, but part of me wonders if it was A) a placebo effect or B ) lifestyle changes as it was the holidays and I was having issues with my company, so wasn't obsessing over it as much. The inositol effects, if there were any, wore off roughly eight months taking the supplement.

I dealt with similar issues 10 years ago when I was 18. I was dealing with a lot of stress at the time, spending a lot of time alone because I had just graduated high school and wasn't going to college yet. I recall one day, the same "light switch" effect happening. Was just sitting in my room writing in my diary and had a violent intrusive thought and the OCD and DP / DR became a 24/7 thing. Back then, I had no idea what was wrong with me. I recall assuming I was going crazy and there was a point I thought maybe I was possessed or some weird spiritual thing was happening to me. It lasted for 5 months. During that five months, I tried keeping myself super busy. I got involved in church, got a boyfriend, took st. John's Wort.....nothing helped AT ALL. Summer that year, I got myself a very fast-paced job and like night and day, my mental issues were gone totally. The summer ended, I stopped working and the OCD thoughts and DP / DR slowly creeped in again.....until I started college weeks later. After that, never dealt with any of that stuff again. ....until two years ago.

It is weird that a lot of people who have DP/DR tend to spend a lot of time alone. I've also noticed a lot of people with this have OCD.....they're just obsessive people. I don't think it's a coincidence that the two times in my life I've dealt with DP/DR was when I was spending too much time alone. It's almost like your brain saying "hey...you're not keeping me stimulated, I'll find a way to do it". I've also wondered if my bulimia was an outlet for my OCD those four years and when I recovered, my OCD just went onto something else.

This coming spring, my mom is retiring, so I'll have someone to watch the baby for me, and I'm thinking of going out and getting myself a little part time job to see if it helps like it did for me 10 years ago. Sometimes I worry that this time around, I've been dealing with depersonalization and derealization for a lot longer than before and it's not going to go away as easily. But I also do remember that keeping myself busy with menial things around the house or even outside of the house isn't enough to change my mindset, it's almost like you need a routine job or school to keep your mind off of your other issues. I laugh when I tell my husband that I think the cure to all of my issues is getting a job that I hate just enough that I become obsessed over not wanting to go to work and nothing else bothers me LOL