Young and worried? How to tell your GP

by Ellern Mede Eating Disorder Treatment

By Susan Ramwell

The years between childhood and adulthood – the teens – are not the easiest. Teenagers face some of society’s greatest pressures yet find it hard to know how to talk about it. Do you talk to parents? You don’t want to worry about them. See a GP? Well, it’s hard to get an appointment. And anyway, what are you supposed to say? You see if it’s not clearly a physical worry you have, most of the time you are not sure how to describe the problem.

Every day, on Ellern Mede’s Outpatient Eating Disorder Service Line, I speak to young people and parents who desperately need advice, starting with – do I have a problem or not; do I need help or not. It’s the right question to ask.

But an even better place to start is with your GP, armed with some information of your own about how to diagnose an eating disorder. You also need the confidence to know, that if there is any chance you do have the beginnings of an eating disorder, the earlier you have a GP initial assessment the better. You need the following physical health measures taken by the GP:

Your Height
Your Weight
A Full Count Blood Test including Phosphates
Your own account of your typical daily diet
Your own account of recent weight fluctuation
Your own account of recent behavioural and attitudinal changes

Your GP will be able to tell from the above assessments, and by consulting Junior MARSIPAN guidelines from the Royal College of Psychiatry Faculty of Eating Disorders, whether or not to refer you for a Specialist Eating Disorder Assessment – either with your local NHS service or a private outpatient service such as that we offer at Ellern Mede.

A specialist private outpatient assessment is affordable for most families. If this assessment concludes a diagnosis of early stages of an eating disorder, a short treatment programme on an outpatient basis is also affordable, and is designed specifically to each person’s needs, time availability and budget.

In most cases, early stage intervention will prevent the condition worsening, strengthen you against relapse in the future and prevent you ever needing an inpatient hospital stay.