When the DSM-5 came out, uh, last March I believe it was, or April. It changed EDNOS. EDNOS no longer exists.
For the pure and simple fact that all the information out online already has EDNOS in it and it's easy to search
and it's the easiest way to talk about it, I still, in my own practice call it EDNOS.
Because Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified sounds a lot better than 'Other Specified or Unspecified Feeding or
Eating Disorders".
And the reason that they say specified or unspecified, if someone, let's say, comes into the ER and they know that
they have an eating disorder, but they don't know enough about the patient to even know whether they meet
criteria for one or the other, or whatever, they say "unspecified". Because they don't have the information
to specify why or why not a client doesn't meet the criteria for one of the other eating disorders. Does that make sense?
So they've kind of changed it, and they've also changed it to include feeding disorders. Which, I'll do a video on this
at a later time but that includes things like Pica or rumination, there are a bunch of different things included
in this now. But for the sake of what we talk about and what I've talked about in the past, I want to talk to you
about what EDNOS means. And what Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified meant for a long time.
The second thing that I want to mention, is the fact that if you've struggled with EDNOS and you've had that
diagnosis before we had these changes, right? You're just as sick as anybody else with an eating disorder.
In fact, I often worry the most about my clients with this because I know a lot of us, in that negative voice that's
wrapped up in our eating disorder tells us, "you're not sick enough, you don't quite meet the criteria for any other
eating disorder". And it monopolizes on that right? And it just takes that and runs with it. When really, from a
clinician's standpoint, we get more scared. Because oftentimes my clients, who I end up diagnosing with
EDNOS have been sick for a really long time. Which leads me to my next fact, that it's hardest to diagnose.
Because oftentimes it won't look like they have an eating disorder, and then it will, and then we'll think "oh maybe
it's this, but oh it's not quite that, well maybe it's that" and they will go a long time being sick before we even know
what they're actually struggling with.
And so, if you haven't checked out my other videos about the facts of anorexia, the seven facts of anorexia,
or the seven facts of bulimia, you can struggle with all of those things, because what the eating disorder NOS
means is that you're hopping from one to the other, and we don't quite do this one maybe enough, but then maybe
we're doing this, so we can purge, that can be part of our eating disorder behavior. And so we're harming our
esophagus, our teeth and enamel is becoming corroded. It can also mean that our cognition is impaired, because
we're not getting proper nutrition. It can mean we have osteoporosis because we weren't eating enough for a long
period of time. It can mean a lot of different things because we're hopping from behavior to behavior.
And that doesn't mean that the behaviors are less hurtful or harmful to our bodies. They're still just as harmful.
So I would encourage you. If you worry, if you're wondering, "Hey Kati, I'm doing something only these many amounts
of time a day or week or whatever, does it mean that I'm really sick, cause I don't really think..."
You're sick and I'm sorry. Eating disorders are scary and they're harmful and the sooner we get help, the better.
And that's why I'm here, right? We're working together to break through the stigma.
Just because we have a different diagnosis doesn't mean we're any better or worse than anybody else.
We're here to get better. We're here to help one another and recover. The more harm we do to our bodies the
worse, right? We want to get help earlier, we want to get help faster, and get treatment and work harder on our
recovery.
And you can even let me know if there's a topic you want me to talk about, but know that EDNOS or
Other Specified or Unspecified Feeding or Eating Disorders are just as serious as any other.
And the sooner we can get help, find a therapist, getting checked out by our doctor, meeting with a dietician,
the better. So let's work together as we break through the stigma and we work towards a healthy mind
and a healthy body.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community