Feature Writing MCOM 356

Waitress Tammy Gaydosh, 36, began her addiction to ice at the age of three.

“I can remember being in kindergarten in Mrs. Wright’s class asking her to call my grandmother so she could bring me a cup of ice,” Gaydosh said.

Gaydosh thought her addiction to ice was a bad habit until she learned from her doctor that she was anemic and it was one of the side effects. Gaydosh consumes on average of about one 10 pound bag of ice every two to three days. This does not include the ice she consumes outside of the house.

“I always order my drinks with extra, extra ice and I prefer crushed ice, if available,” Gaydosh said.

“My boyfriend of six years has tried to incorporate rules to my ice chomping, such as no chewing ice in the car, the bedroom or while watching TV,” Gaydosh said. “This has not deterred me from having ice in my mouth, which seems to be a constant thing.”

Gaydosh has consumed so much ice over the years that in 2005, she was treated by the Vein Clinic of America for her restless leg syndrome. Gaydosh has also experienced varicose veins and was treated for three months. In September 2010, her bottom left molar had cracked.

“I had it repaired, but it broke again,” Gaydosh said. “The dentist had to shave my tooth down and reinforce a filling.

Gaydosh experiences fatigue in the middle of the day and tries to stay alert by moving around, but she still continues to have a sluggish feeling. She also has a bad habit of biting her nails, but as long as she can remember, her nails would grow but then break off.

She is the only member of her family who consumes ice on a daily basis. She said they constantly yell at her because of the noise she makes while eating it. She said she consumes so much ice that she doesn’t realize when she is eating it.

“I think now, it is a mental addiction,” Gaydosh said. “It is like a drug. I think that I have done it for so long that I honestly need therapy. As crazy as that sounds it is definitely my reality.”

Taking vitamins or iron pills has been known to help reduce eating ice and also to help improve the anemia level. Gaydosh has taken iron pills, Omega 3 and multivitamins with iron, but she said that this treatment has not helped her ice addiction.

She said she doesn’t think she can stop her addiction and every time she feels that her ice is getting low in her house, she goes out and purchase another bag to last her through the day.

“I prefer the bags of ice with cubes in a ball shape because the cubes seem to crunch easier,” Gaydosh said. “It is funny to say this, but it is my reality.”

Gaydosh recommends that other ice eaters try and control it by cutting down their consumption weekly and see if that helps them to stop their addiction.

“It is crazy to think that I am addicted to this habit,” Gaydosh said. “I just think I am too far gone to change it now.”

Like Tammy Gaydosh, Rebecca Jackson, 20, also has an addiction to ice. Jackson began her addiction when she was in the eighth grade. Jackson consumes a 16oz. cup of ice every day. She said she craves ice because she loves that freezer taste.

“I think it’s the Freon, the chemical that makes the freezer cold,” Jackson said.

In the fall of 2003, Jackson underwent an iron transfusion. She had an anaphylactic reaction which caused her face and lips to swell and her throat to close up. The doctors gave her a Benadryl injection to help with the swelling. After having the transfusion and having a bad reaction, Jackson has limited her consumption of ice.

Jackson also experiences being fatigue. She takes three hour naps and it takes a lot of energy for her to walk up steps and get to class. Not only does she undergo fatigue, but she experiences brittle nails and restless leg syndrome as well.Her nails tend to peel and flake and when she feels uncomfortable, she has the urge to shake her legs.

“I crave ice because I’m anemic,” Jackson said.

Jackson is not the only person in her family to crave ice. Her mother also craves ice as well, but only when her blood levels begin to drop. Jackson is currently taking slowfe, which is a slow release iron pill that helps her to maintain the iron in the blood.

“Before the transfusion, my doctor told me I had no iron stored in my blood,” Jackson said.

Even though Jackson knows that eating ice can cause cracks in her teeth, she would not stop her consumption of ice because she loves it and it’s not fattening. Jackson recommends that other ice eaters make sure that they’re eating properly and taking vitamins daily.

Tamara Leak, 21, shares the same addiction. Leak doesn’t know when and how her addiction started, but she does know that it has been going on for quite some time. Anything and everything drives Leak to crave ice. Doesn’t matter when or where, day or night, she needs to have her fix.

“I do notice that I want it when I’m angry or hot,” Leak said. “I also have a habit of eating ice as soon as I walk in my house and right before I leave out of the house.”

Leak stands in one spot for at least five to ten minutes eating ice before leaving and coming back home. She consumes about one 34oz cup of ice every day, which is nowhere near compared to the amount that Tammy Gaydosh consumes. Leak said she experiences fatigue, restless leg syndrome and brittle nails.

“My nails break easily,” Leak said. “I can’t get them to actually grow and stay at the length I want.”

Leak recently had a doctor’s appointment and found out that her red blood cell count was very low. Due to the low levels, Leak was considered anemic. Her doctor prescribed iron pills to help increase her level of iron.

“I just started taking iron pills, so I have not yet seen the effect,” Leak said.

Leak doesn’t see herself stopping her addiction any time soon. She said she loves the taste and smell of ice too much to quit. But she has realized that if she did give up her addiction, she wouldn’t be cold all the time or live through withdrawal when she’s unable to get ice.

Leak’s advice to others who share this addiction, wouldn’t be on how to stop, but telling and showing them the best way of making the best tasting ice.

Each of these people share not only an addiction to ice but common symptoms such as restless leg syndrome, fatigue, and having brittle nails due to being anemic. Because they are anemic, they crave ice. But questions still arise as to whether it’s really an addiction or just a bad habit.

Hematologist Dr. David P. Steensma said that anemia is the condition of having less than the normal number of red blood cells or less than the normal quantity of hemoglobin in the blood. The normal blood count level for women is between 12-15g/dL and 13-16g/dL for men. It is not known why people with anemia crave ice.

“The body may sense a mineral deficiency and this craving may be a way of compensating,” Steensma said. “In general, though, the substances ingested with pica behavior like this do not actually provide the mineral or nutrient in which patients are deficient.”

“Yes, eating ice is a side effect of anemia,” Steensma said. “But it’s only seen with iron deficiency anemia. Sometimes people who are not anemic eat ice because of a psychological problem.”

Even though eating ice can be harmless, it can cause headaches or crack teeth. But anemia is not harmless. Anemia can cause a variety of complications such as the need for a red blood cell transfusion. Taking vitamins or iron pills with iron supplements can help to correct the iron deficiency, resolve anemia and end the pica behavior.

“If oral iron doesn’t correct iron deficiency anemia, intravenous iron is tried,” Steensma said. “If that doesn’t work, then further evaluations are needed.”

Steensma said he has treated hundreds of patients with anemia but only less than ten percent who crave ice. Most of them are afraid to give out that information voluntarily and most of his patients don’t recognize or understand the connection between the craving and the anemia, he said.

“It is not an addiction like people have for narcotics, it’s just a craving that goes away when the mineral deficiency is corrected,” Steensma said.

Growing up in the early 70s for 38-year-old Nina Polk from Mt. Vernon, New York can be best described as an emotional and abusive childhood. A childhood is normally something to be cherished in life but this is not the case for Nina.

She was born to an alcoholic mother on April 9, 1972. Her father is unknown and she is the oldest of three siblings. When she was an infant, Nina’s mother broke her hands and scolded her with hot water. She now only has feeling in her hands when she is holding onto something tight. Her mother threatened to take her life a few times as she got older. Nina decided to run away from home at the age of seven and was later abandoned by her mother. Due to the abandonment of her mother at such a young age in a big city, she was forced to depend on neighbors for food and shelter. But, to make matters even worse, she started to get abused by one of the neighbors who she thought she could trust.

Nina decided to run away again. She stayed on the streets and inside of the New York City subways for a year, finding warm places for shelter inside and outside. By the age of eight, Nina was reunited with her sisters who were living with one of the neighbors. Soon after being reunited with her sisters and finding out that they were being abused as well, she took her sisters and ran away. For two years she had to take on the responsibility of fending not only for herself, but her sisters as well. She knew that if she didn’t leave, she and her sisters would continue to get abused.

Her aunt, JoAnn Walker, found Nina in the subways of New York City looking for food and begging people for money. Once her aunt, Nina and her three sisters were all reunited, her aunt took custody of the girls and moved them to Harlem Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland in 1982 and she gave them the proper care and affection needed as a mother. Since Nina and her sisters were out of school for so many years, her aunt decided to put them into school. She was fortunate to finish middle school and high school, but did not enroll into college because she felt that it wasn’t of benefit to her life at the time.

After living in Baltimore for two years with her aunt, she finally met the one person who had been missing in her life since she was born–her father.

“My relationship with my father was a good one,” she said. “He never lied to me about anything and he never judged me when I had fallen out into the world.”

She never questioned his whereabouts. Her only concern was that she had another piece to her missing puzzle.

Many times during her teenage years, Nina’s mom tried to come back into her life and become a better mother, but soon enough, she would fall back in her old habits of drinking.

“My mom was in and out of rehabilitation centers trying to get herself clean,” Nina said.

Whenever Nina got angry she would go out and do things for spite. Besides her mother not being in her life, she couldn’t fully understand why she was so angry.

Nina didn’t have much of a social life growing up. She used to isolate herself from the world. She felt the need to just be alone. Even though she isolated herself from the world, it never affected her relationship with men. At the age of twenty, she had found out that she had been pregnant by a guy who she barely knew. She was unaware of the pregnancy until she got sick and had a miscarriage. Just two years later after having a miscarriage, Nina met another man who was sixteen years older than her who already had two children from a previous relationship.

“It didn’t matter to me how old he was,” she said. “I just knew that he was handsome.”

By the age of twenty four, she started to abuse drugs thinking that it would solve her problems and things would just go away. After four years of drug use, she realized that using drugs was not the option of making her life better. Nina yearned for that sense of guidance that she didn’t obtain from her mother.

In the year of 2000, 28-year-old Nina Polk decided it was time for a change. She had decided to turn her life over to God. Even though her aunt took her to church every Sunday and she sang in the choir, she wasn’t able to grasp the full effect of who God was at such a young age.

“I needed a change, and I saw no way to do it on my own,” she said. “I needed comfort, a sense of protection and guidance since my mom wasn’t there to offer it.”

She attended many churches before finding the right church that made her feel welcome and at home. On Jan. 18, 2006, she became a member of Bethel AME church. Just nine months after becoming a member and family of a church, her 12-year long friendship had finally turned into a companionship. In October 2006, 34-year-old Nina decided it was time to take another big step in her life. She and her boyfriend decided to get married.

Nina finally felt her life beginning to turn around after such a hard childhood and adulthood. Not only did she turn her life over to God and filled in that empty space, but she found a guy who had truly made her happy and she wanted to spend her life with. Who knew that this same woman who went through life without seeing love, would experience what true love is.

Nina used to allow the negativity of her childhood to affect her daily routine in life. But as she got older, she realized that what happened in the past is over.

“It’s done and I am more mature,” she said.

 She doesn’t allow her old ways to interfere with the new Nina. The new Nina is a Sunday school teacher at her church and is a leader and secretary for prison ministry. She preaches for about 30 minutes to women inside prison. After seeing the amount of women in jail, she is glad that she did change her life around because who knows where she would be today.

Many people would say that those who have had a rough childhood into adulthood don’t normally make anything out of themselves, but Nina Polk is a perfect example of change. Being abused by her mother as infant, abandoned by her mother at the age of seven, sexually assaulted by her neighbors, caring for her sisters at the age of eight and turning to drugs for reassurance, would have someone thinking that there is no need to even be alive. But for Nina, she was determined to change her life around and start over.

It is said that people should forgive but don’t forget. Ten years after changing her life around and finding God, Nina has found the courage to forgive her mother, but has never forgotten what she has done to her. Nina said forgiving her mother was the right thing to do, but if she was younger and never found God, then she would have not forgiven her mother.

Growing up in such an emotional and abusive childhood has not harmed her future. She continues to push with a positive view on life.

“A setback will get you nowhere in life, but in the same spot where you once were before,” she said. “You must remain positive at all times.”

Nina Polk is a married woman with two step children. She is a custodial head supervisor at Towson University. Despite what she has been through in her past life as a child until early adulthood, she walks around with her head held high and a smile on her face. You can look at her and think that nothing ever went wrong in her life until she opens her mouth and begins to share her story.

They say that sometimes life repeats itself, but for Nina, it doesn’t. She said that if she was to ever decide to have children, she would not treat them how her mother treated her.

“I would show them what my mother never showed me, and that’s love.”

If she ever had the chance and opportunity to reach out to others in the same situation, she would tell them, “Whatever happens to you in your past life, please don’t stay stuck on it in your present life because it can affect your future.”