
Kayla W. answered 01/25/21
Masters in Nursing with 10+ years of experience
The description of her symptoms leads to a diagnosis of bulimia. In bulimia, patients tend to binge on large amounts of food, and purge to get rid of it. The purging can be from self induced vomiting and/or laxative use. The frequent purging can result in dehydration, which can lead to altered electrolyte levels (including low K+ and Cl-). While each patient is different and without more information a definitive acid base imbalance cannot be diagnosed, the one you might most expect to see would be metabolic alkalosis. This is primarily due to a fluid contraction throughout the body due to purging.