Published on 12, July, 2020
No matter how much I eat, I always feel hungry. I've had this for as.long as I can remember, I'm just used to the constant pain in my stomach. I find that when I get to a certain point when eating that my jaw hurts and eating just makes the pain worse. Is that how it feels when you are full, the pain you feel when hungry but much worse? I am very confused by this and don't understand it at all.
I only recently had the thought that my jaw hurting and the stomach pain getting worse was being full because I don't know how it's supposed to feel when full.
I hope this makes sense. I am not good at explaining it. Please let me know if this doesn't make sense and I will try to explain it better.
Hi- I can relate to this- for me hunger , fullness and nausea all feel quite similar which can make it difficult (and I have IBS too which makes it worse too). You can get better though at reading the cues and sometimes using context and other cues can be helpful- eg. When did you last eat? If it has been a while, it could be hunger. Are you feeling faint, tired too? These could be signs of hunger (though they could also be simply due to being tired). And during a meal, it can help to maybe check in and see if you had a reasonable portion already etc. It takes time to figure out the cues. It also helps to have a routine and regular meals and snacks- it will make your hunger and fullness cues more reliable and will give you some structure
it might also be a good idea to talk to your GP about the constant hunger. There are medical conditions that can cause constant hunger so it would be good to rule out.
also different foods make you feel more or less full and for different times. foods with more fibre eg whole grains fruits vegetables will help you feel full longer. Protein also helps with this.
if you do make changes to diet or want to try eating smaller portions (not sure if this is what you want), you need to give yourself time to get used to it. I had a lot of issues with digestion and eating and needed to gain weight and at some point I made myself eat 2 huge meals in day. Initially when starting meal i would feel ravenous, then it would turn into feeling queasy but I felt compelled to try and eat more and once I pushed past a certain point it almost felt like hunger again (though this probably was nausea and overfullness). When I first got into more regular eating of 3 smaller meals and 3 snacks it felt super weird and each meal somehow felt incomplete- a lot of it is habit too especially when you are having a hard time reading hunger and fullness cues.