Taking laxatives to lose weight doesn’t often get talked about, but it is a real wellness problem that is, in actual form, a form of abuse on your body. On a recent episode of The Dr Oz Show, television doctor Dr Oz explored this very issue, bringing on a guest, Shanna, who had gone from 260 pounds to 78 pounds by using laxatives, but that’s not all that happened.
Dr Oz explained to his viewers, ‘Laxatives―millions of women are using them to lose weight and there’s a pretty good chance you or your friends are using them. Misuse can lead to irreversible physical damage, and cause the women who use them to spiral out of control.’ Not only can laxatives damage your physical health, but, as Shanna explained, laxative dieting can take its toll on your mental wellbeing.
Shanna, aged 42, stated, ‘I am a laxative addict. I started by just taking 1 or 2 laxatives a day and then I needed to start taking more, and I went up to 10 or 12. Now my laxative use at night time has increased up to 30-40 pills…I wake up during the night anywhere from 2-5 times…I looked down and I saw blood in my urine…my stomach is just killing me and its miserable and I can’t sleep. I wish that I could just wake up normal.’
Shanna’s story is similar to that of many women. She had always been overweight, but at some point during her obese adulthood she could no longer bear the sight of herself in the mirror. When she tried good old fashioned diet and exercise, Shanna lost 120 pounds but this hit a plateau, and so she turned to laxatives.
However, even though it affected her wellness in painful ways, taking laxatives seemed preferable to the withdrawal your body goes into when you try to stop: ‘I’ve tried to cut back, but then you just bloat up and it’s an uncomfortable feeling. Everything gets hard like around your middle section, and then after a while you can’t eat or drink anything.’ According to Dr Oz, this happens because overusing laxatives damages your intestines, so your digestive system doesn’t work the way it should when you try to go back to a normal diet.
Tennie McCarty, a therapist who earlier in her life had once been addicted to laxatives, is now helping Shanna through her problem. She said that though it is a physical problem, a lot of the work that needs to be done is on Shanna’s mental dependency on the drugs. She also said that women who use laxatives for weight loss, but are not to the same level of addiction that Shanna is, also need to seek help before they too wind up like Shanna. Dr Oz added, ‘it’s just not worth the price you pay.’
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