She’s is/was pro-ana basically and caused most of her issues from purging from her tube. She used to shop her self thinner and supposedly drains burgers herself. She’s definitely not one to champion.
The overlap between internet munchies and eating disorders has always been rather suspicious. If you've got an active ED you're trying to hide then gastroparesis is a great cover story for it. Not eating much? Just tell people your gastro is flaring up. Immediately puking up all your food? Blame it on the gastro.
Just gonna add her here, but Amy Lee Fisher strikes me as definitely not a munchie. Oversharing, yeah, but legitimately ill.
Which makes me realize how much all these munchies here are full of shit. Example? Good luck draining a burger. And like partial gastroparesis the doctors are going to be seriously reluctant to give a NG tube let alone anything else cause reliance on a tube would make the condition progress. I think her case lasted a month before the NG accomplished nothing.
I think a big difference is how munchies jump to the biggest and most intrisive treatment they can get first whereas the first 10 doctors they see refuse to place a tube and tell them to alter their diets and the 11th places an NG tube. A not munchie obviously doesnt even get to that many doctors seeking a specific end result.
I do wonder if these munchies not following doctor directions creates gastrointestinal issues.
She probably has hEDS. Sucks to be her. However, everything else she has ever done is overblown. I don't follow her because her personality grates on me, but just some observations from scanning her social media and youtube:
Claims severe gastroparesis, but as MunchOff above me said, she did fine on an NG tube for a long time and filmed herself removing it when she didn't want it in anymore and reinserting when she did. NG doesn't bypass your stomach, and if she was taking it out for most of her day she wasn't on continuous feeds at a super-slow rate, so there was no real difference from her slowly drinking liquids. She never talked about trialling a GP diet or nutrition drinks before going to NG tubes. She apparenly has no problem with alcohol, though, since she is constantly posting pics of her with a drink in her hand. And also sugary/fatty coffee drinks. Two of the worst possible things that even someone with slight acid reflux is told to avoid let alone someone who claims her stomach is completely paralyzed. Films herself purging through her tube after she gets on TPN because can't have any extra calories. Actually made an entire video on how to purge through your tube therefore teaching a whole new group of illness fakers exactly how this can be accomplished. Don't forget burgers, fries, and onion rings while supposedly in intestinal failure.
She shoops herself, ana-chan poses, sucks in, and does everything in her power to look smaller than she is. Compare photos and videos from the same time. When she can't carefully curate the image she's not anywhere near as spoopy.
She claims Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis triggered by blood sugar spikes which comes on almost instantly if she accidentally drinks non-diet soda, but can drink sugary alcoholic beverages, smoothies, and eat high-carb meals when she wants (as long as she drains teehee!) She uses it as an excuse to drink diet drinks while claiming she can't eat or drink anything without vomiting – look at her hospitalization videos even when she was starting TPN. There's almost always a diet drink on her table.
She has to E-beg for medical supplies that should be covered by insurance if she was actually prescribed it.
Shows evidence of POTS (BP/HR readings) but those same symptoms would be there if she was just, yanno, starving and dehydrating herself.
Her anemia also makes no sense to me. Granted, not an expert here. Claims there's no iron in her TPN, which would negate the "total" part of that, and if she's having these severe anemia episodes requiring multiple transfusions why would there be no iron in her tpn? Perhaps she pulled a Kelly Ronahan now that she has a Hickman.
Has seizures and syncope but can drive. Made a whole video about how she had been cleared to drive. This does not happen to a person whose seizures are not under control. She either does not actually have them or she never told her doctor about them. Claims it's because she has auras and therefore can get herself safely off the road. Not a damn chance.
Willing to bet the only reason she doesn't have more radical interventions right away is because it's harder to do that in Australia than in the US. I'm just not buying what she's selling.
Not really, there are a couple other drugs prescribed to patient who are on NSAIDs to reduce GI risks but none of them really work. The rate of GI complications for people on NSAIDs is like 75%.
Technically insufflated heroin is the safest drug ever for pain management assuming you're not being dumb with it, but we obviously can't prescribe that to patients. Because, well, patients get dumb with it.
Heroin/ morphine is actually very fucking safe if not bought off the street. You had people taking pharma opiates mixed with Tylenol or NASIDs dying, not due to the narcotic, but because they would take 10 plus Vicodins and destroy their liver with Tylenol. The narcotic wasn’t the problem, it was the “safe” OTC shit in the pills. To get the amount of hydrocodone or oxycodone they wanted they were forced to take 1000s of mg of Tylenol along with it and it killed them.
One of the founding surgeons of John Hopkins was a life long heroin addict. One of the most famous heroin addicts of the 20th century, William Burroughs, lived to be 84 years old after a lifetime of street heroin and then methadone. Heroin is a pretty safe drug overall if not contaminated and dosage is kept stable and monitored. (Most ODs are not by active addicts, most addicts can’t afford to OD. ODs happen to addicts who quit for days, weeks or months and then take a dose and die because they no longer have the same tolerance for the drug.)
It’s the whole addiction problem, and the resistance to prescribing such drugs as maintenance for addiction, that leads to ppl destroying their lives and bodies. Since the USA has such a terrible opioid problem right now I’ll be curious if they finally relent and start harm reductions programs and Rx heroin or methadone more like is done in the UK and certain European countries.
There was an interesting book Licit & Illicit drugs that was a great scientific, unbiased look at drugs published in the early 1970s by Consumer Reports. Certainly changed my perspective of a number of drugs and corrected some misconceptions.
IIRC the majority of street "heroin" overdoses come from the heroin being laced with fentanyl, which is way stronger and therefore gives a stronger high, but also causes overdose at lower amounts than heroin. Someone injecting heroin which is secretly laced with fentanyl might experience an amazing high and go back to the seller for more--or just die.
Because such a tiny amount of it is required for pain management and it can be easily manufactured, fentanyl is used in hospitals. It's about 100 times as strong as morphine (50 times as strong as heroin). IDK whether it's prescribed for any of the illnesses Munchies can mimic, though. I'm pretty sure it's only given to people who are already tolerant of other opioids, so acquiring it would be a long process without much Munch reward, I'd imagine.
"Spoonielife Amanda" aka Jaquie's Skinwalker has provided me with this great rundown of shit that happened to her between when she claimed she was going to get treatment for her anxiety and stop exaggerating her health problems/seeking the most radical interventions until she started publicly updating her facebook again in April. It's like The Nothing never was!
Munchausen: not even once.
Amanda Winig is a woman in her late 20s (27 or 28 iirc) from Nebraska who moved to Florida for the Disney World college program. This is an internship program where college kids can spend a semester or longer working for peanuts for the Disney parks in menial positions like food service and this is supposed to help them somehow. She ended up as a parking lot attendant, even though she was a social work student. After her term was done she was not invited for a permanent position but did not want to leave Florida so she briefly worked for Universal Studios until she was able to reapply to Disney independently and did get rehired as a parking lot attendant. After a year she got transferred to concierge at the Polynesian Village, one of their top-tier hotels. She was pretty fat (240 by her current calculations although previously claimed 190), posted nothing but food pics and Disney sperging, never mentioned anything to do with health.
Then one day she had a service dog in training. Or rather, she had a golden retriever puppy she bought from the same breeder Jaquie got Harlow from. She at first did not explain what this dog was for, but people commenting seemed to think it was a psychiatric dog, which makes sense because she has claimed to be in an abusive relationship and have panic attacks, anxiety, and PTSD since getting out of it. Fine, cool.
After she got the dog, she started dropping weight extremely quickly, like 40% of her body weight in seven months or something, and went on medical leave. She had to have teeth pulled because she vomited so much without taking proper precautions to neutralize the acid afterwards that she rotted them out of her head. Claimed the Jaquie Special, EDS/mast cell/POTS/GP, got a port, a GJ tube without ever having an NG or NJ, a wheelchair (same one as jaquie in a different colourway), an adjustable bed (same one as jaquie and bought like one day after Jaquie announced she bought one), had to be on Kate Farms right after Jaquie was on it, got the same harnesses and patches for her service dog that Jaquie had for Harlow, taught her all the same tricks including the famous Ranch Dressing/get me water trick, spoopy pro-ana shots, bragging about shopping in the kids' section. Typical munchie, although I don't recall any pill porn. Jaquie even set her up with her concierge doctors and visited her in the hospital during one of her sepsis stays and here it is:
she had to go on medical leave until disney could get her a wheelchair accessible check-in desk and accommodate her service dog. Then she had to go out on leave again over some disability access thing that may or may not have to do with her retiring Sadie early. She cried all over insta that there was one little minor thing that was keeping her from continuing to work there and then she almost immediately retired the dog. She's currently planning to go back to work but until then she's still going to the parks all the time.
When lolcow and later IF started laughing at her she chimped out about how she was nothing like Jaquie, then made a tearful post in IF about how she learned the error of her ways, she unfollowed all chronic illness accounts, locked down her insta and facebook, deleted her youtube, and stopped seeking media attention for being sick, but maintained that her disorders were really real, guys.
Thing is, she never toned down her behavior. She just took it offline. And here she is to explain it to us all!
tl;dr:
She is 90 lbs after losing 150, although she previously claimed her top weight was 190 and she never looked 240.
Is on TPN.
Mast Cell Activation syndrome, must be in hospital for two weeks because anaphylaxis
Still scoots around in a wheelchair most of the time as her "muscles fail her" (yeah that's what happens when you starve yourself and don't walk)
Got a new service dog from a program she would not have qualified for when she got Sadie because they don't train psych dogs.
Port, saline infusions, all drugs IV
Got a gastric stim, site got infected, got sepsis, gastric stim removed. Worth noting that batshit insane EDS/GP munchie Raven Walden who was featured on Big Brother also had this exact same thing happen right around the same time.
Bought a $1200 hand cycle despite being unemployed for most of the last three years. Races in handcycle races intended for people who are actually disabled. You know, because when you're starving to death by your own claims, the best course of action is to train for a half marathon but do it so you don't blow your sickest little spoonie cover.
Shouts out another girl who works for disney, has a service dog, and competes in pushrim wheelchair races at Disney (except when she feels like racing on her working legs, that is). She has the munchie combo platter, has a hickman and later a port, gave herself sepsis more than once, signs herself out of hospital when she has a major infection because she wants to do a Disney race instead, IVIG (why do they all get fucking IVIG?!), had a previous service dog she retired with no warning and replaced even though he was a miracle dog who could alert to other people's diabetic crises without having been trained for it (of course, her random labrador she trained herself is a "natural alerter"). Not worth following/boring as all hell.
I hate all of these people yet I cannot stop watching them.
She probably has hEDS. Sucks to be her. However, everything else she has ever done is overblown. I don't follow her because her personality grates on me, but just some observations from scanning her social media and youtube:
Claims severe gastroparesis, but as MunchOff above me said, she did fine on an NG tube for a long time and filmed herself removing it when she didn't want it in anymore and reinserting when she did. NG doesn't bypass your stomach, and if she was taking it out for most of her day she wasn't on continuous feeds at a super-slow rate, so there was no real difference from her slowly drinking liquids. She never talked about trialling a GP diet or nutrition drinks before going to NG tubes. She apparenly has no problem with alcohol, though, since she is constantly posting pics of her with a drink in her hand. And also sugary/fatty coffee drinks. Two of the worst possible things that even someone with slight acid reflux is told to avoid let alone someone who claims her stomach is completely paralyzed. Films herself purging through her tube after she gets on TPN because can't have any extra calories. Actually made an entire video on how to purge through your tube therefore teaching a whole new group of illness fakers exactly how this can be accomplished. Don't forget burgers, fries, and onion rings while supposedly in intestinal failure.
She shoops herself, ana-chan poses, sucks in, and does everything in her power to look smaller than she is. Compare photos and videos from the same time. When she can't carefully curate the image she's not anywhere near as spoopy.
She claims Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis triggered by blood sugar spikes which comes on almost instantly if she accidentally drinks non-diet soda, but can drink sugary alcoholic beverages, smoothies, and eat high-carb meals when she wants (as long as she drains teehee!) She uses it as an excuse to drink diet drinks while claiming she can't eat or drink anything without vomiting – look at her hospitalization videos even when she was starting TPN. There's almost always a diet drink on her table.
She has to E-beg for medical supplies that should be covered by insurance if she was actually prescribed it.
Shows evidence of POTS (BP/HR readings) but those same symptoms would be there if she was just, yanno, starving and dehydrating herself.
Her anemia also makes no sense to me. Granted, not an expert here. Claims there's no iron in her TPN, which would negate the "total" part of that, and if she's having these severe anemia episodes requiring multiple transfusions why would there be no iron in her tpn? Perhaps she pulled a Kelly Ronahan now that she has a Hickman.
Has seizures and syncope but can drive. Made a whole video about how she had been cleared to drive. This does not happen to a person whose seizures are not under control. She either does not actually have them or she never told her doctor about them. Claims it's because she has auras and therefore can get herself safely off the road. Not a damn chance.
Willing to bet the only reason she doesn't have more radical interventions right away is because it's harder to do that in Australia than in the US. I'm just not buying what she's selling.
I disagree about her having hEDS (it just doesn’t look like she does). She maybe has benign hypermobility but I think that’s it. Everything else is self-constructed, especially the “severe gastroparesis”. GP and POTS are ridiculously easy to fake for ana chans, which she was until she found that faking physical illness is the real cash cow.
I disagree about her having hEDS (it just doesn’t look like she does). She maybe has benign hypermobility but I think that’s it. Everything else is self-constructed, especially the “severe gastroparesis”. GP and POTS are ridiculously easy to fake for ana chans, which she was until she found that faking physical illness is the real cash cow.
I based it on the hypermobility and her claimed skin stretchiness. But I just compared her to skin stretchiness in diagnosed hEDS and you're right. She might have slightly looser skin because she starves herself but she's not EDS freakshow stretchy.
I disagree about her having hEDS (it just doesn’t look like she does). She maybe has benign hypermobility but I think that’s it. Everything else is self-constructed, especially the “severe gastroparesis”. GP and POTS are ridiculously easy to fake for ana chans, which she was until she found that faking physical illness is the real cash cow.
I think the loose skin part of an EDS dx is a bit sketchy. I just googled photos of it and none showed up that looked particularly extraordinary. I know people who were fat as children and as they grew up got slimmer but still have very stretchy skin. Her weight loss to get her gastropareisis dx probably explains that. Hypermobility is also something that can occur on its own and not be linked to EDS too.
I agree that all of these seem self inflicted.
Because such a tiny amount of it is required for pain management and it can be easily manufactured, fentanyl is used in hospitals. It's about 100 times as strong as morphine (50 times as strong as heroin). IDK whether it's prescribed for any of the illnesses Munchies can mimic, though. I'm pretty sure it's only given to people who are already tolerant of other opioids, so acquiring it would be a long process without much Munch reward, I'd imagine.
Back in the opiate heyday you could get opiates for fibromyalgia pretty easy. Just tell the doctor that gabapentin wasn't working and you'd eventually manage to wrangle up a prescription for transdermal fentanyl. I doubt it's really that common for doctors to do that anymore, but I guess it might be possible since insurance still covers fentanyl patches for fibromyalgia pain.
Munchies seem to care way more about toobz and illness accessories than they do about pills though. Probably because getting labeled as a drug-seeker would complicate your Munchie journey quite a bit.
Back in the opiate heyday you could get opiates for fibromyalgia pretty easy. Just tell the doctor that gabapentin wasn't working and you'd eventually manage to wrangle up a prescription for transdermal fentanyl. I doubt it's really that common for doctors to do that anymore, but I guess it might be possible since insurance still covers fentanyl patches for fibromyalgia pain.
Munchies seem to care way more about toobz and illness accessories than they do about pills though. Probably because getting labeled as a drug-seeker would complicate your Munchie journey quite a bit.
Don’t be fooled, most munchies are also pill seekers. They may not start out as one but it always seems to become part of the journey. However most munchies know it’s stupid to discuss all the pain pill seeking shit because they will get called out or raise suspicions. They do like to talk about the pain but making it obvious what pills they want for it is a no-no.
Once they get labeled as a drug seeker by doctors their life gets a lot more difficult for scoring Rx so if they have an ounce of sense they keep it very much on the down low. Tubes and useless surgeries help make them seem extra sick and certainly in need of pain meds and attention.
I think the loose skin part of an EDS dx is a bit sketchy. I just googled photos of it and none showed up that looked particularly extraordinary. I know people who were fat as children and as they grew up got slimmer but still have very stretchy skin. Her weight loss to get her gastropareisis dx probably explains that. Hypermobility is also something that can occur on its own and not be linked to EDS too.
I agree that all of these seem self inflicted.
Yup, that’s exactly it. And EDS skin isn’t just stretchy, there’s other issues as well, even in hEDS (without skin involvement it’s just hypermobility or JHS). She was an ana chan for a long time until she decided being a munchie was much more profitable, but then jumped on the EDS/POTS/GP bandwagon since those are somewhat easy to fake and are insta-popular right now. But the POTS and GP are definitely induced (thanks to her ED and desire for a tube and TPN, winner winner munchie dinner); and the EDS she just doesn’t have the symptoms for (however she possibly has some normal hypermobility, an estimated 10% of women do).
Back in the opiate heyday you could get opiates for fibromyalgia pretty easy. Just tell the doctor that gabapentin wasn't working and you'd eventually manage to wrangle up a prescription for transdermal fentanyl. I doubt it's really that common for doctors to do that anymore, but I guess it might be possible since insurance still covers fentanyl patches for fibromyalgia pain.
Munchies seem to care way more about toobz and illness accessories than they do about pills though. Probably because getting labeled as a drug-seeker would complicate your Munchie journey quite a bit.
I was lurking on an EDS support forum for a while and I was so shocked by all the young women (and a few men, but way outnumbered by women) who were being given multiple heavy duty opiate scrips for their joint pain by doctors who allegedly knew what they were doing. Like if you need fentanyl in your 20s, how are you going to cope when the osteoarthritis shit hits the fan in your 40s, let alone 60s? hEDS people don't have a foreshortened lifespan, you have some 60 years of pain to look forward to, if you're already on fentanyl then you're fucked. I was so alarmed I came out of lurking a couple times and suggested to people that toning supporting muscles, starting slow and gentle with things like swimming or recumbent cycling, and using methods like breathing and meditation to cope with pain, was much more appropriate for that stage of their disease. You can imagine how that went over. I didn't know enough about each individual to judge who was legit and who wasn't, but it honestly didn't seem to matter, even the legit ones were on a treatment path that was going to basically doom them to spooniedom forever.
I was so alarmed I came out of lurking a couple times and suggested to people that toning supporting muscles, starting slow and gentle with things like swimming or recumbent cycling, and using methods like breathing and meditation to cope with pain, was much more appropriate for that stage of their disease. You can imagine how that went over.
What is it about the mere suggestion that exercise will help joint pain that gets peoples backs up? I don't know if it's the same in every county but where I live if you go to the Doctor with joint pain the first thing they ask you is how active you are and look for a description of the kinds of activities you do. You might go home with a mild anti-inflammatory but if you're not active you'll generally be told to start walking or to take up an aqua aerobics class.
What is it about the mere suggestion that exercise will help joint pain that gets peoples backs up? I don't know if it's the same in every county but where I live if you go to the Doctor with joint pain the first thing they ask you is how active you are and look for a description of the kinds of activities you do. You might go home with a mild anti-inflammatory but if you're not active you'll generally be told to start walking or to take up an aqua aerobics class.
I mean I realize it sounds dickish but the reality is that they are sheltered wimps. They haven't suffered pain and hardship of the sort that gives perspective, and they spend their whole life avoiding the kind of aches and pains that it would behoove them to learn to ignore and work through. They don't need to go through bootcamp or anything but it would be healthy for them to just like, idk, have a really bad flu or pneumonia or go through natural childbirth or pass a kidney stone so they can figure out that subluxations are the hangnail of the musculoskelatal system and move the fuck on with their lives, preferably ambulating rather than seated on a Rascal.
These munchies are not doing themselves any favors with their eating disorder gp. The goal is always to return to normal eating, not eating and draining. How they can even tolerate half the foods and drinks they do and still claim to need a feeding tube is crazy.
Real gp is not a fun experience, nor is being on a feeding tube long term. There are long term effects that none of them consider, including issues years later.
Power Level, I had severe gastroparesis to the point I had to have a PEG/J tube almost 20 years ago. These munchies are having a lot more fun with it than I ever did. Even now I still have to be careful what I eat and drink. And no one mentions the pain from doing something stupid, like trying to keep a watermelon from rolling out of the back of my car causing me to twist and tear scar tissue from my old feeding tube stoma. I thought I had a hernia or something.
I didn't know enough about each individual to judge who was legit and who wasn't, but it honestly didn't seem to matter, even the legit ones were on a treatment path that was going to basically doom them to spooniedom forever.
EDS groups have managed to glob EDS, hEDS and totally pain and dislocation-free general joint hypermobility all under the EDS label so there's no telling what the hell EDS means anymore. It could be "I will be lucky to make it to age 40 before my organs rupture" or "I can bend my pinky backwards teehee."
It makes it easier for spoonies to get their EDS diagnosis and reduces visibility of serious shit like vascular EDS now that EDS is known as the fake bendy hand disease.
I said the other day how this thread was better than r/illnessfakers because there was less blogging...I see I was wrong.
Anyway, I know someone with hEDS and she goes to physical therapy at a specialized clinic every week and she has exercises she has to do every morning that involve, like, lying on her stomach with her arms out holding weights for three minutes. Do any of the insta EDS-ers ever talk about doing that sort of thing?
I said the other day how this thread was better than r/illnessfakers because there was less blogging...I see I was wrong.
Anyway, I know someone with hEDS and she goes to physical therapy at a specialized clinic every week and she has exercises she has to do every morning that involve, like, lying on her stomach with her arms out holding weights for three minutes. Do any of the insta EDS-ers ever talk about doing that sort of thing?
