panicking over weight loss

[Tracey Gray]

I worry about weight loss. I have suffered anxiety and depression for years and it never gets any easier. I visited my GP a week a go with acid reflux he gave me some medication which has helped, but on leaving the surgery i casually said to him so its nothing serious then. He said its fine you would have other symptoms like weight loss. I felt quite happy leaving the surgery. A few days later i weighed myself and guess what i had lost a pound. Totally freaked me out so now think im dying. Been googleing always a bad thing lost my appetite cant eat so lost another 4 pounds. I am going out of my mind one panic attack after another. I now get up at 5.30am to shower in the dark so i cant see my wasting body please help

[emlica]

The kind of weight loss your doc would have been talking about would be a) significantly more than just losing a pound (you can lose a pound from one day to the next!), and b) 'unexplained'. If you're not eating properly, then your weight loss is not 'unexplained' - it's explained by the fact that you're not putting enough food into your body. If you've had acid reflux for a while it may well be that you've not been eating quite as much or quite as 'normally' for a while, as I know some people with acid reflux find they feel full quicker than normal, for instance, or you might be avoiding certain foods that set your reflux off (which are often fatty foods).

I also got a bit freaked out about losing weight without trying (and still do, on and off, to be honest), but I know that when I'm anxious, although I eat my regular meals fairly normally, I don't "snack", and at lunchtime I'll just have a sandwich rather than a sandwich and crisps and a bar of chocolate. So of course I'll lose weight.