Barriers to accessing help

LouJ wrote:Hi - I am trying to research the barriers that those who suffer with anorexia face when they decide to try and get help for their condition - mainly issues concerned with care and treatment in the nhs. Would anyone be able to help with any views on this subject? Has anyone had problems when accessing care? Many thanks for any responses.

I usually try to get the patients to treat her/himself by explaining some of the underlying biochemical mechanism that causes one to have a Eating Disorder

Is the explanatory process involved fairly easy to understand for most patients? I'm looking in a bit more depth about the problems children and their families are having when trying to access support, having understood that Gp's are not always understanding of children with anorexia and can often take a year or more to diagnose, despite parents/carers knowing the condition their child may have.
And also, when help is available in the form of various therapies, are most families willing to co-operate in the process?

Hi Louj

Are you only specifically looking for experiences from children/families?

As to the second question I suppose it depends on the type of eating disorder, but for anorexia (in adukts at least as that's all I have to go on), the answer is 'no', people often aren't willing to co-operate with the treartment, which is often inadequate, lead by people who really know nothing about what it's like to suffer with this disease, and barbaric.

Karen

Hi - no not just experiences of children, but I am looking at barriers to accessing help and support from anyone having suffered with/suffering from anorexia - where the NHS does not support sufferers in the way they had hoped - I understand already GPs are not quite as understanding as they could be, and are often under-informed on the subject and in mental health in general. I would like anyone's views of how the NHS helped/hindered their recovery, treatment paths, communication between professionals, the different interfaces, and the multi-dimensional care that is often required. Was the treatment successful and was treatment followed up and followed through? I am looking at aspects of working together in these care pathways, communication, barriers, involvement of the service user etc. Thanks, Lou.

Hi Lou

This is just my personal view based on my personal experiences, but I'd have to say you already know the answers to your questions.

In my opinion most GPs are very ill informed and have little knowledge of eating disorders, be it anorexia, bulimia, compulsive eating or whatever. If you are lucky you will have a GP who is willing to extend their knowledge, but I think this is the exception rather than the rule.

If someone suffering has summoned the courage to seek help I found from my experience that I had to do the research and initially ask my GPwhat I wanted. But then the mental health team and psychiatrist got involved and ignored me completely. All I got told was that if my weight and BMI dropped to a certain level I would be sent to hospital against my will. As you can imagine maybe from that point on I wanted nothing to do with them. They offered me hospitilisation and nothing else.

So off my own back I found a local day hospital that dealt with EDs. You have to bear in mind that resources and support centres for eating disorders are very scant, and it is only if you live in London, or a couple if other places that support exists.

Finally I did secure funding for the day hospital, with the aid of my GP at the time, but having got there the service was severely lacking, and I deteriorated.

I've since had two in patient admissions for anorexia, not under section but pretty much under force. I stayed my time atthe first one, even though it was distressing being 'fattened up', and although I hated it at the time, I can at least say they gave patients input to their treatment and if you followed the rules you got released. It was a private hospital but funded by the NHS as my health was deemed to be in threatl

My second inpatient stay was traumatising and even though it is two years since I 'escaped' by running, I still have flashbacks. I was sent to Cygnet. whose 'treatment' seemed to consist of bullying, general mistreatment and a system of punishment for even suspected, not even confirmed, wrong doings.

In total my experence of 'treatment' or my eating disorder from professionals has been very bad and I am still suffering today but will not approach a GP or mental health team due to the lies and manipulations I've got proof of. Most support comes from friends, which while this is not fair on them, I will never trust another professional.

Sorry I went on a bit there but I hope some of of it helps your research.

Karen