In people suffering from bulimia, very often there is just a wolf’s hunger. This may be due to some kind of nervous disorders, as well as diseases of the endocrine system. To control their weight at a certain level, such people immediately after eating cause vomiting or use certain diuretics or laxatives. This leads to serious health problems.
Signs of bulimia
People with this disorder are characterized by an increased appetite, which is supported by a strong feeling of hunger,and pain in the pancreas. Hunger attacks can be very diverse. Patients with bulimia do not distinguish between physiological and psychological hunger. Once they start eating, they can’t stop. Overeating can be episodic and binge-eating, can overtake at a certain emotional state and at a certain time of day, for example, at night (calorizer). During overeating, food for such people is a real pleasure, but then they experience a strong sense of guilt and shame, which force them to clear their stomach or intestines.
The disease develops against the background of stress, with low self-esteem, can be a consequence of hormonal imbalance or upbringing. If the mother constantly sat on starvation diets, arranged hungry days after large feasts, and also believed that with feces and then fat goes away, and tried to involve her daughter in this, then in adult life 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, moving). To reduce the degree of experience, people begin to eat plentifully, and then get rid of food.
Sometimes such a mental disorder occurs in athletes who have to control their weight and nutrition very carefully. After the competition, they consume food in unlimited quantities, after which they cause vomiting. As they say, I ate and did not get better.
In 1982, the Clark Institute of Psychology created a special test that can be used to determine this mental disorder. At first, it had 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 determine a disease such as bulimia. To do this, it is enough to pay attention to a few main points. If a person very often causes vomiting, then small scratches and wounds may appear on his fingers. Immediately after eating, such a person runs to the toilet. There may be serious problems with the teeth, because the gastric juice eats away at the enamel. With a huge appetite, you can observe a significant weight loss, weakness or fatigue in a bulimic patient.
The first signs of an eating disorder can look quite harmless – this is regular overeating, the desire to work out what you ate in training, arrange a fasting day, breakdowns from restrictive diets,stress eating. What unites these manifestations with classical bulimia? Guilt and shame that make a person do all of the above, as well as inhibitions and a thirst for control.
At the initial stages, patients are not aware of their condition, but at this point their negative eating habits are fixed. And before you or your friend puts 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.
Treatment of bulimia
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 yourself, growing dissatisfaction with yourself and life;
Stage III-awareness of the disease, there is a desire to get rid of it, the first steps to recovery are made.
The whole treatment is for the patient to completely reconsider their eating behavior. This is achieved by consulting with psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, endocrinologists, and nutritionists (calorizator). To begin with, the patient must realize that he has this problem. Sometimes hospitalization in a medical institution is required, but most often the treatment is carried out on an outpatient basis. It includes a set of measures: individual and / or group psychotherapy, medication.
Do not consider bulimia some childish trick, because it can be the main cause of huge health problems. Very rarely, patients themselves realize their mistake and begin treatment, so if your friends or relatives are faced with such a problem, help them realize it and start the treatment process. In practice, there were cases when death occurred due to exhaustion.