Eating Disorder Recovery Support

Eating disorder recovery requires a specialized treatment team. Alongside it, we support digestion, blood sugar stability, hormones, and the brain circuits of safety, reward, and interoception.

What you may be noticing

You are in recovery, or supporting someone who is. Digestion feels uncomfortable as eating increases: bloating, fullness, constipation, or reflux. Energy, sleep, and mood fluctuate. Periods may be irregular or absent. Urges to binge or restrict arrive in waves, especially under stress. Anxiety around food and the body persists, even as behaviors change.

Eating disorders are serious medical and psychiatric conditions. Dizziness, fainting, chest pain, a very slow or irregular heartbeat, confusion, or rapid weight change need urgent medical care. Thoughts of suicide warrant a call or text to 988 in the United States. Recovery should always be guided by a specialized team: physician, therapist, and dietitian.

Why it is rarely one thing

Eating disorders arise from a mix of genetics, neurobiology, temperament, trauma, culture, and environment, and they affect every system. Restriction slows gastric emptying and gut motility, lowers sex hormones and thyroid output, depletes minerals, and affects bone density. Refeeding must be careful, because rapid shifts in electrolytes can be dangerous. Binge and purge cycles disrupt blood sugar, electrolytes, and the esophagus.

I view urges as brain-based signals rather than failures of willpower. Research shows altered interoception, the sense of internal body signals, and heightened anxiety circuits in many eating disorders. Binge and restrict loops often travel with limbic reward drive, a prefrontal brake that tires under stress, and a body that reads blood sugar swings as danger. Gut inflammation and the gut-brain axis can amplify those signals, and past trauma often sits beneath them.

My role is careful and complementary. I never direct weight goals or food plans apart from your team. I support the physiology and the nervous system so the work you do with your team can land more fully.

Patterns we look for

• Electrolytes, phosphate, and magnesium, monitored with your physician.
• Gastric emptying, gut motility, and gut inflammation.
• Blood sugar stability across the day.
• Thyroid function, sex hormones, and cortisol rhythm.
• Bone density.
• Iron, B12, zinc, and vitamin D.
• Heart rate and blood pressure from lying to standing.
• Interoception and body awareness.
• Anxiety, trauma history, and stress physiology.
• Sleep quality.

How I evaluate it

The comprehensive functional neurological exam assesses autonomic balance, heart rate variability, interoceptive awareness, vestibular function, eye movements, and frontal lobe regulation. These findings guide gentle nervous system work.

Functional labs, coordinated with your physician, may include electrolytes, phosphate, magnesium, a complete blood count, ferritin, B12, zinc, vitamin D, a thyroid panel, and sex hormones. I share findings with your treatment team and do not discuss weight targets.

How we address it

1. Keep your specialized treatment team central.
2. Begin with safety, rhythm, and predictability, pacing any trauma-related work to your treatment stage.
3. Support regular, predictable meals as set with your dietitian, so blood sugar stays steady.
4. Support digestion: motility, comfort, and gut-brain signaling.
5. Calm the nervous system with a long exhale, humming, and other vagal practices.
6. Rebuild interoception gently with body-based awareness practices.
7. Strengthen prefrontal regulation and ease limbic urgency with eye movement and brain-based exercises.
8. Support hormonal and bone recovery, sleep, and stress resilience.

Recovery is a whole-body process. Every system can be supported on the way back to nourishment.

Book your Comprehensive Functional Medicine Eval/Neurological Exam today to discover what the contributing root causes are that are underlying your health concerns.