Rumination Disorder

Nutrition Therapy

What is rumination disorder?

It may seem like a simple thing, but Rumination Disorder can be extremely disruptive to someone’s life. Rumination Disorder is not just simply the regurgitation of food, but occurs in times of stress and discomfort. This may mean social settings are difficult, perhaps there are certain foods that trigger rumination, or more than likely the individual has dealt with rumination for so long they cannot even identify the urge or trigger.

Rumination begins, like more eating disorders, as a comfort response. It becomes habitual and therefore is difficult to stop. Rumination Disorder looks different for each person in terms of how often it happens, when it happens, how much food is regurgitated and if the food is re-swallowed, chewed on, or spit out immediately.

Rumination Disorder may lead to an eating disorder that includes purging (self-induced vomiting), or restriction. Research on rumination disorder prevalence also reports individuals with an already diagnosed eating disorder may suffer too from rumination disorder, upwards of 7% (HB Murray, 2019).

There are medical consequences to Rumination Disorder such as esophageal issues (Barrett’s Esophagus, weakened esophageal sphincter, etc.), GERD or Reflux Disease, Electrolyte Imbalances, and dental issues.

What is the treatment like at Bamboo Nutrition?

Treatment of Rumination Disorder includes stopping and avoiding regurgitation of food by the use of diaphragmatic breathing and coping skills. Sessions at Bamboo Nutrition are focused on rumination, although we may also discuss other important factors to the individual such as body image, meal plans/nutrition throughout the day, and emotions while eating.

what to expect for an initial session and follow up sessions?

We will likely meet with you for about 10 sessions. The initial session is 90min and will be an overview of symptoms, behaviors, history, and current behaviors. We will educate you in follow up session on diaphragmatic breathing and recommend a therapist to help with coping skill development. It is important you work with a specialized therapist. We will create a treatment plan together in the follow up session and reassess each time we meet. We may provide you with a meal plan if necessary, otherwise discuss nutritional intake and provide recommendations.

The number of sessions may be more or less depending on the work you do outside of our meetings.

Schedule An Initial Session