I know when I don’t eat for a long time (and I know a “long” time for me, isn’t a “long time” for starving people, but I’ve forgotten to eat for a couple days before), as soon as I eat I start to feel sick; hell, sometimes my stomach, er, rejects the food and I undo all my hard work eating by vomiting it up. This makes me wonder, do they have to be careful when feeding starving people in case all the food they got from donations gets rejected by their bodies? Or am I just an oddball?
From what I understand, they start them on liquids like Ensure, then mushy foods, finally working them up to solid foods.
An article from Wikipedia on refeeding syndrome, which is what happens when it is done wrong.
Yes. When my parents were liberated from Concentration camps they were re-fed very carefully. Some people they knew gorged on bread and became very ill. Some died.
quote:
“Or am I just an oddball?” (For asking the question)
No. I think it’s an interesting question and well answered.
Not “for asking the question” but “for feeling sick”. Which is still a good question.
“…do they have to be careful when feeding starving people…?”
That’s the question I thought at the core of this thread (people often take a circuitous route to get to a core question). The two posters who followed seemed to catch the same gist and addressed it well, I thought. Sometimes I miss something else going on on first reading. I’m old.
You frequently ‘forget’ to eat for multiple days and then vomit when you finally do eat something? Yeah, that’s pretty odd.
Frequently? No. It’s happened once or twice, for three days once, twice another. It really wasn’t intentional, I forget about bodily functions completely sometimes and only hours (or days, in very, very rare extreme cases) later do I suddenly realize I really, really need to pee/poop/eat/sleep. Occasionally I’ll go a day without eating if I’m really busy. But even if I don’t eat for, say, 16-18 hours I’ll start to feel really sick and get a REALLY painful stomach ace after something finally gets in my stomach. Occasionally it’s painful enough to make me vomit, but that’s not common either.
Seconded!
How does a person “forget” to eat, for a couple of days? :dubious:
Meth or coke, might diminish the desire to eat, for a day or so. But, to forget to eat? 
I don’t know which I would find more odd, the vomiting or the forgetting. :eek:
I don’t know, I find it difficult to remember and respond to my bodily functions. I really, really don’t notice sometimes that I have to pee, until I instantly become aware and it’s incredibly, incredibly painful and I’m almost peeing myself. This happens for more or less everything that isn’t breathing. Sleeping, eating, pooping, you name it! It usually happens if I’m trying to focus, absorption to the max I guess, but sometimes it happens COMPLETELY randomly.
IIRC the Chilean miners who were buried alive for two months (not too long ago) had to be carefully re-fed.
Wish I could find the article but once a new hole was made to be able to supply the trapped miners there were very precise restrictions placed on what food could be sent down. The miners had to be slowly inched back to solid food over the course of several days.
Well, your idea that eating is “all my hard work” makes you rather an oddball. Most people find eating quite pleasant & enjoyable. And some (gourmets) are rather obsessed with it.
OTOH, you probably don’t have to worry much about obesity.
Hyperbole. I enjoy eating (and love cooking) just fine.
Well, since the original question has been answered, let’s talk more about you 
Using me as a comparison, (since we all know I am the very model of mundane), I forget to eat for a few hours sometimes, maybe even a half-day if I am hiking or super busy. But, to forget for a whole day? Either your hobbies are much more interesting than mine, or I’d say that’s a bit out of the ordinary.
In 543, the Ostrogoths laid siege on Naples. Starving and with no relief in sight, the city surrendered. The Gothic King Totila- who was actually really nice for a conqueror- ordered guards to be placed at the gates so that no one could leave, then rationed out small amounts of food for fear that the people would gorge themselves. He increased the amount of food daily until everyone was back to good health.
People think we learned about refeeding from the concentration camps in WWII. Maybe we relearned it then, but someone knew about it at least 1500 years ago.
I can understand not eating. I really only eat one meal a day, lunch. My daughter wants dinner at 5pm but that’s often too early for me so I’ll cook dinner for her then use the time that she is eating to get some things done. I’ll usually have a snack at night but if I miss lunch and miss the snack, before you know it, it’s 11pm and I realize I haven’t eaten all day. And it’s not rare that I put her to bed, sit down on the couch for a minute, then next thing you know it’s the next morning, then I don’t eat until lunch. That would only be about 36 hours, but it’s not the reflection of an exciting life, just a couple hours of being busy at just the right time. And face it, I’m American, I can’t remember the last time I was really hungry. I eat because it’s time to and if something screws that up, no biggie.
Interesting fact! 
Describes me, to a*** T***! 
Just so you don’t feel like too much of a freak, I’m another that can go without eating for long periods. I tend to eat at least two meals, but one might just be a glass of milk and some toast or something like that. Eating, in itself,* is just not that important to me and I get caught up in whatever I’m doing and put off eating.
I get weak and nauseous though. I tend to get a stomach in the mornings after breakfast fairly often too (small early dinner, no snack, breakfast 12 hours later.)
(*not that I can’t enjoy eating, but if it’s just me and whatever I scrounged up? Not that thrilled).
I’m at the opposite end of the spectrum because I have hypoglycemia issues - too long without food means migraine, the shakes, dizziness, inability to speak clearly, and numb hands.
I haven’t always been the best at feeding myself regularly, either - when I get into ADD hyperfocus I can ignore the needs of my body pretty well. But I certainly eat something at least twice per day.
The only people I have ever known IRL who claim to ‘forget’ to eat for days are not in fact forgetful, but are deliberately restricting their food intake for whatever reason (punishment, eating disorder), so that colors my opinion of anyone making this claim.
Have you ever considered asking your doctor if there’s an obvious (treatable) cause that you …forget bodily functions? I don’t want to play armchair psychologist, but… I thought of autism or similar as to the complete concentration on one task to the expense of forgetting everything. The feeling of being disconnected to your own body, and therefore disregarding the bodily functions as lower importance, is - if strong - symptom of several mental problems, but can also come from chemical imbalances/ drugs. Additionally, there seems to be evidence according to some studies that with more people spending time in front of PCs (on a message-board) and not enough doing any kind of physical activity, the slight feeling of not being connected to your body is widespread. (This is also given as reason for many teens cutting themselves: pain is the only thing that makes them feel at all). The recommended cure is to actually go out and do things to get re-acquainted with your body and how it feels.