Mental health problems >>>> Bulimia - causes and treatment methods

Bulimia - causes and treatment methods.

Bulimia is one of the forms of eating disorders, when a person experiences an overwhelming feeling of hunger (brutal appetite), but does not feel the moment of satiety and consumes food in volumes much larger than the body needs to replenish energy and nutrients.

It is believed that bulimia has a neuropsychic underlying reason for its development, but bouts of "gluttony" can occur in a number of other cases, for example:

with endocrine disorders (diabetes mellitus),
with brain lesions (toxic or against the background of tumor development),
with prolonged fasting (with strict diets, "cleansing" the body),
with high physical exertion, incommensurate with the usual meal and requiring much more calories.

True bulimia develops against the background of prolonged stressful situations, uncertainty about one's own appearance, traumatic events. Rejecting other forms of entertainment and positive emotions, people with bulimia find pleasure in the process of eating. But at the same time, patients with bulimia are aware that overeating contributes to weight gain, so after each meal they artificially vomit in order to prevent the body from absorbing food. In addition, people with bulimia begin to take laxatives and diuretics to speed up the evacuation of nutrients from the body.

You should not think that those suffering from bulimia are people with excess weight or flaws in the figure, but most often they think so, although in fact they have quite pleasant body dimensions and even more than attractive appearance. And nevertheless, this does not deter them from the constant desire to lose weight, despite the "decent" food. This is how an inadequate attitude towards themselves and the inability of people to correctly assess their appearance is manifested.

In fact, bulimia is a mental reaction to chronic stress, which can be caused by not developing relationships with parents, with friends, with the opposite sex. The psyche does not stand, and the person begins to "seize" his misfortunes.

The characteristic signs of bulimia that relatives and friends should pay attention to in order to understand what is happening to a person:

Unhealthy interest in correcting your figure and measuring your own weight,
Abrasions on the hands (a consequence of calling the gag reflex with the hands),
Damaged teeth as a result of constant ingestion of gastric juice into the oral cavity,
Weight loss, even slight, while eating,
Food restriction alternating with overeating or continuous food intake,
Nightly meals ,
Nervousness,
Imbalance of character
Mood swings,
Negative attitude towards your appearance.

Bulimia treatment is the field of work for psychotherapists, and in extreme cases and psychiatrists. The best results in treating bulimia are achieved when a person himself realizes that something is wrong with him and agrees to follow the recommendations of specialists. It is pointless to treat bulimia on your own, since a person suffering from it cannot always correctly assess the results of treatment and do not have at their disposal medicines to help cope with the disease. The fact is that in the process of treating bulimia, antidepressants are prescribed, and their choice is the prerogative of the doctor, not the patient. But creating a psychological support group for a person suffering from bulimia is quite within the power of people around a person with such a disorder. Therefore, it is necessary to be attentive to those people with whom we communicate throughout life, and to lend a helping hand to them in case of detection of the symptoms described above, since bulimia is a serious disease that can lead to death due to cardiac arrest, kidney failure and other severe diseases resulting from a lack of nutrients, vital substances for the body.