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Video: Bulimia: Signs And Consequences
Bulimia: signs and consequences
People with bulimia very often have just wolf hunger. This may be due to both some kind of nervous disorders and diseases of the endocrine system. To control their weight at a certain level, such people immediately after a meal induce vomiting or use certain diuretics or laxatives. This leads to serious health problems.
Signs of bulimia
People with this disorder have an increased appetite, which is reinforced by a strong feeling of hunger, and pain in the pancreas. Hunger attacks can be very diverse. Bulimic patients do not distinguish between physiological and psychological hunger. Once they start eating, they cannot stop. Overeating can be episodic and drunken in nature, it can overtake at a certain emotional state and at a certain time of the day, for example, at night (calorizer). During overeating, food for such people seems to be a real pleasure, but then they experience a strong sense of guilt and shame, which makes them empty their stomach or intestines.
The disease develops against a background of stress, with low self-esteem, may be the result of hormonal imbalance or upbringing. If the mother constantly sat on starvation diets, arranged hungry days after large feasts, and also believed that fat goes away with feces and then, and tried to involve her daughter in this, then in adulthood the girl may face bulimia.
Bulimia goes hand in hand with anxiety, and anxiety can be both negative (failure, rejection by someone) and positive (promotion, marriage, relocation). To reduce the degree of anxiety, people begin to eat abundantly, and then get rid of food.
Sometimes this mental disorder occurs in athletes who have to control their weight and nutrition very closely. After the competition, they consume food in unlimited quantities, after which they induce vomiting. As they say, he ate and did not recover.
In 1982, the Clark Institute of Psychology created a special test that can identify this mental disorder. At first it contained 40 questions, but the final version already contained 26. This test is very popular and accurate.
How to recognize bulimia
It is not necessary to ask your loved one 26 questions to define a disease like bulimia. To do this, it is enough to pay attention to a few main points. If a person vomits very often, then small scratches and wounds may appear on his fingers. Immediately after eating, such a person runs to the toilet. Serious dental problems can occur, as gastric juice eats away at the enamel. If your appetite is high, you may experience significant weight loss, weakness, or fatigue in a bulimic patient.
The first signs of an eating disorder may look quite harmless - regular overeating, the desire to work out what was eaten in training, arrange a fasting day, breakdowns from restrictive diets, and seizing stress. What do these manifestations have in common with classic bulimia? The guilt and shame that lead a person to do all of the above, as well as inhibitions and the need for control.
At the initial stages, patients are not aware of their condition, but at this moment their negative eating habits are fixed. And until you or someone you know has two fingers in your mouth, you need to take action.
Severe overeating and artificially induced vomiting is a huge stress for the body. As a result, serious health problems can be observed: disorders of the heart, gastrointestinal tract, complete exhaustion of the body, metabolic disorders, painful condition of nails, hair, skin and tooth decay, and sometimes internal bleeding.
Bulimia treatment
A person with bulimia goes through three stages:
Stage I - unconscious overeating and conscious punishment after it;
Stage II - overeating is realized, there is a constant struggle with oneself, dissatisfaction with oneself and life is growing;
Stage III - awareness of the disease, there is a desire to get rid of it, the first steps towards recovery are made.
All treatment is for the patient to completely revise their eating behavior. This is achieved through consultation with psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, endocrinologists and nutritionists (calorizators). To begin with, the patient must himself realize that he has this problem. Sometimes hospitalization is required in a medical institution, but most often treatment is carried out on an outpatient basis. It includes a set of measures: individual and / or group psychotherapy, medication.
Do not consider bulimia to be some kind of childish trick, because it can be the main cause of huge health problems. Very rarely, patients themselves realize their mistake and begin treatment, therefore, if your friends or relatives are faced with such a problem, help them realize this and start the treatment process. In practice, there have been cases when death occurred due to exhaustion.
Author: Zhanna Sh. (Specially for Calorizator.ru)
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