Loretta Harmes has been passionate about food and cooking ever since she was a child. She is known as the nil-by-mouth foodie on Instagram where she posts her mouth-watering creations from desserts to burgers to holiday recipes. But here’s the twist: Loretta hasn’t eaten anything in six years.
The Nil-By-Mouth Foodie’s Journey
Whenever Loretta would eat or drink, she’d feel excruciatingly full and sick, as if her stomach would burst. She often was unable to use the bathroom properly for weeks, sometimes months. Now, she “eats” through a tube that winds around her face. But her unique symptoms had left her being disbelieved by doctors and misdiagnosed.
Her love for cooking began when she was young. She and her grandmother would make recipes from the cooking game show Ready Steady Cook. These were just the first of the collection of her warm memories of food and creating it. At age 11, Loretta cooked dinner for her family once a week when her mother worked late.
“I would have free rein in the kitchen and loved the idea of creating something from scratch for my family to enjoy,” she says.
Her cooking expertise went from her mother’s tomato pasta bakes to stews, pies, meatballs, and chicken salad. In secondary school, she won food competitions against older students.
However, food wasn’t entirely a positive experience for her. When Loretta was 15, she got anorexia and fought it for about a year. Additionally, throughout her teenage years, she suffered from digestive issues that would occasionally flare-up. However, she remained happy to cook, eat, and experiment with different flavors. She wasn’t on Instagram yet, but she was the nil-by-mouth foodie in the making. [1]
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Living a Nightmare
Loretta was ready to pursue her culinary dream. She was awarded a spot at a top culinary arts college in London. But she was only able to complete only one year of the three required for her course because of her declining health. By 19, her pain was so intense; it kept her in bed.
“Things went downhill dramatically. I couldn’t eat or go to the toilet at all, and then the next five years became a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from,” she says.
To make matters worse, her doctor chalked up her weight loss to a return of her eating disorder. For two years, Loretta remained in an eating disorder unit. Meanwhile, she weighed 56 pounds. She forced herself to eat and gain weight, but it caused her even more pain. Because of this, she began to act out and was three times sectioned under the Mental Health Act for 18 months. The professionals added delusional psychosis to her file.
“I told them repeatedly that the only reason I am depressed is because of my bowel and stomach difficulties, but they didn’t believe me,” she says. She even attempted suicide several times, seeing no end to her terrible, abdominal pain.
The patients in that facility had to eat six times a day, usually something like canned fruit and yogurt or processed meat with boiled vegetables. Nobody could leave the table until everyone finished eating, including Loretta. Afterward, she would curl up, trying to alleviate her agony.
“I craved peace and quiet from it all,” she says. “I fully recovered from anorexia, it was a life lesson which became a life sentence.”
Diagnosed With Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome
Years later, she was finally diagnosed with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. This genetic disease is very versatile and not yet fully understood. But in Loretta’s case, her stomach is partially paralyzed, and can’t properly process food. All of those forced meals did nothing to help her. She also endured migraines, fatigue, a racing heart, and neck pain.
Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome affects connective tissues, including skin, joints, and blood vessel walls. Because of this, many people with this condition are overly flexible with fragile and stretchy skin. There are 13 major types of this syndrome, all with different effects on the body. [2]
Loretta knows that she could never eat or drink anything again. She hooks up to a heavy liquid feed bag for 18 hours a day. Despite the limitations of relying on such a device, she now has energy and proper nutrition to maintain a healthy weight. On her Instagram, she writes about her experiences wearing the tube. “I used to be self-conscious because people would full-on stare, but nowadays I’ve learnt to just smile and wave.” [3]
Most importantly, she’s out of pain and able to return to her passion of cooking as the nil-by-mouth foodie.
“The reason I don’t go stir-crazy over not being able to eat is that I’m so relieved to be free from the pain after so many years,” Loretta says. “The cooking itself is what I get pleasure from. Being in the kitchen is a real creative outlet for me. If I am ever worried or anxious, as soon as I get cooking it fades because I am too busy concentrating on the dish I am making.”
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Sources
- “Nil-by-mouth foodie: The chef who will never eat again.” BBC. Kirstie Brewer. April 19, 2021
- “Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome: What Is It and How Is It Treated?” Healthline. April Kahn. September 28, 2018
- “the.nil.by.mouth.foodie.” Instagram. April 19, 2021