Side Effects of Bulimia to Watch Out For

Bulimia is a serious disorder that is becoming a trend among young women. Adding the pressures of society constantly insinuating that women should look beautiful by being thin, bulimia can have severe effects on a person’s mental and physical health.

One of the most common side effects of bulimia is the discoloration of the teeth. Since our stomach contains acid, constant vomiting can cause tooth decay since your teeth are in coming into contact with the acid. Stomach acid can also affect the esophagus that causes it to bleed. Frequent vomiting can have serious effects on the body such as sinus cavities or can cause infection to the lungs.

Other side effects of bulimia are organ problems such as irregular heartbeat, malnutrition due to the body not absorbing enough nutrients, and overall feeling of weakness. The physical side effects of bulimia are just the tip of the iceberg. One who suffers from bulimia may also suffer from psychological damage.

First off, people who are bulimic are perfectionists. Although not generally a bad thing, but when in excess could cause one to think of pleasing others first before pleasing themselves. With that they often let what other people think dictate their lives. Those who suffer from bulimia may also feel anxious or depressed, as it can often be caused by chemical imbalance in the brain. Bulimia is not a simple disorder as it can take control of the person’s.

Bulimia is an eating disorder that is taken too lightly. It may be difficult to see some of the side effects of bulimia, but if these symptoms are left alone and disregarded, they may lead to a lot of medical problems, and Worse, even death. Bulimia has already caused death to the lives of thousands of teenagers and even adults. It is very important that we look closely at the side effects of bulimia in order to offer help and support to the sufferer. If you are the one who suffers from bulimia, don’t be afraid to ask for someone’s help, especially those closest to you. Or better yet seek professional advice.

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Signs of Bulimia You Should Watch Out For

Bulimics are good at hiding their condition to people who are even close to them. They employ a variety of methods to make it appear that there is no problem when in fact they are abusing food. Here are some signs of bulimia that you need to watch out for so that you can approach that person and offer your help especially if that person is close to you.

Signs of bulimia you can look out for include teeth marks on the knuckles, most often involving the dominant hand. It is caused by injury from the teeth as a finger is inserted down a bulimic's throat to trigger a vomiting reflex. If the marks look like indentations from the teeth, then you are sure that is a sign of bulimia.

Another sign of bulimia is bloodshot eyes. Blood vessels in the eyes often burst during vomiting; this can also lead to re blotches on the face for long term for long term bulimics. Red blotches can last longer than bloodshot eyes but are more obvious after a vomiting scenario.

Watch out for individuals who are constantly disappearing after a meal. If they are running the water and flushing the toilet repeatedly then they may be trying to cover up the noise of vomiting. Although this is not the only place that they hide to vomit, as they can do that at other places like their own room in a plastic bag.

You need to be aware as well that signs of bulimia and bulimia itself can affect both sexes and people of all ages.. It is not a condition solely found on teenage girls, but they are also found on adults who want to feel better after a heavy drinking session so that they can feel much better.

Look for any evidence of vomit in the bathroom. Bulimics try to be as careful as possible after a purging session. But they won’t be able to attend to small details such dried a vomit on walls, floors, and basins. By paying attention to signs of bulimia you can now identify the problem and approach them to in order to help resolve their problem.

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Treatment for Bulimia Nervosa

There are several types of treatment for bulimia nervosa, and as a sufferer you may need one or a combination of two or more of these treatment types. Combining psychotherapy with antidepressants may be the most effective approach for treating bulimia nervosa, but there are instances wherein that are not necessary anymore and what is needed is the support of family and friends in order to overcome the eating disorder. Below is the different treatment for bulimia nervosa available if you are a sufferer or if you know someone who suffer from bulimia.

Psychotherapy is a way of treating bulimia by talking about the condition and any related issues with a professional mental health provider. A type of psychotherapy is known as cognitive behavioral therapy. This type of treatment for bulimia nervosa involves your own thoughts as the main influencing factor on how you behave and not because of what other people think. Cognitive behavioral therapy helps you identify unhealthy, negative behaviors and replace them with healthy and positive ones.

Family-based therapy can also be an effective treatment for bulimia nervosa. This is based on the assumption that the sufferer can no longer make sound decisions concerning his or her own health and needs the help and support of the family in order to do so. An important part of family-based therapy is that the family is involved in influencing healthy-eating patterns and helping the sufferer restore lost weight.

Antidepressant medication is another form of treatment for bulimia and may help in reducing the symptoms of bulimia. The only antidepressant specifically approved mental health specialists is the fluoxetine or popularly known as Prozac. Doctors can still prescribe other antidepressants or medications to treat your bulimia. Antidepressants or other psychiatric medications can also help treat other mental disorders related to bulimia such as depression or anxiety.

Treatment for bulimia nervosa can be done even outside of the hospital. But if you the sufferer show signs of serious health complications, you may need treatment in a hospital. Hospitalization may be on a medical or psychiatric ward. There are specialized eating disorder clinics that offer intensive inpatient treatment.

Whatever type of treatment for bulimia one has to undergo, the support of family and friends is always needed in order to achieve a higher and much quicker success rate.

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What is a Nonpurging Bulimia?

Nonpurging bulimia is another form of bulimia that does not involve the usual purging scenarios of forced vomiting. You think that because you don’t see any evidence of purging or vomiting, the individual does not suffer from bulimia, you have to think again. Bulimics have other ways of getting off the food they ate of their system and that is through excessive exercise, a nonpurging bulimia method.

Nonpurging bulimia is often common to teenagers and men. This is often in relation to teenagers and some men too much concerned about the size and shape of their body. Now this individuals will start out by eating a lot and then when the feeling of guilt for eating too much starts to kick in, they will engage themselves in too much physical activity, and the most common of all is excessive exercising.

When an individual has finished binge eating, they will feel ashamed and start engaging themselves on a variety of activities just to get rid of the food they have just consumed. Most of the time, theses sufferers induce vomiting, ingesting diuretic beverages or laxatives. But nonpurging bulimia involves activities such as excessive fasting or excessive exercise.

Men and teenagers exercise so as to lead a healthy lifestyle. However, some of them make use it as a method of getting rid of the food they have eaten. Thus they turn to excessive exercising so as to do just that. People who exercise excessively have a hard time doing other tasks all throughout the day since they are either too engaged in their exercise regimen, or they are simply too tired due to the excessive exercise bout they just went through. Individuals who are suffering from nonpurging bulimia are oftentimes observed to have been exercising at the most inappropriate times, some right after eating. They refuse to stop exercising even after they have suffered from some type of injury.

What makes this nonpurging bulimia sufferer more prone to health dangers is that they never experience any decrease in their weight, thus they will continuously engage in heavy and excessive exercise.

Like the regular, purging bulimia, nonpurging bulimia sufferers have low self esteem, may be suffering from depression, and they have other mood disorders. There are a lot of factors as to what can trigger a nonpurging bulimia disorder, but all of which point out to their self confidence and how they perceive themselves.

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Different Forms of Bulimia Therapy

There are a variety of bulimia therapy modes out there that are being employed currently. It is just a matter of finding which one suits the sufferer’s needs and the weight of the problem should also be taken into consideration. Bulimia used to be problem associated to supermodels and model wannabes. However the eating disorder is now a problem that also extends to common people like us. Due to the propagation of fad diet information being sent out to people, people tend to lose weight without finding out if the measures that they employ are really healthy.

If you or someone that you know is suffering from bulimia, make sure you identify the weight of the problem and take the sufferer to seek professional help. Below are some of the bulimia therapy approaches being used.

The cognitive behavioral therapy or the CBT approach is where the patient is taught to feel good about their body, their weight, and how they should perceive everything about them. This type of bulimia therapy shows how the sufferer can control their mind from overeating and how to eat healthy. Cognitive behavioural therapy uses a psychological approach that is based on a scientifically proven research.

Another bulimia therapy used is the drug therapy. In this approach, the doctor administers antidepressants if the suffering from bulimia is suffering from depression as well. Bulimia and depression are tied to feelings of guilt and sadness that prompts an individual to eat more and then purge.

Interpersonal of family therapy is another bulimia therapy available. In this approach the individual is taught how he or she can maintain strong and loving relationship with their family members, or friends, or even anyone they come in contact with. In this bulimia therapy, it is encouraged that the sufferer attends the clinics with the family members or friends. This will reinforce the belief in the sufferer that they are not alone in facing this problem.

Whatever approach of bulimia therapy you seek out, be sure that you support the person who suffers from the eating disorder and ensure them that they are not alone as they walk all throughout the recovery process. This ensures a far more successful therapy and a quicker one at that.

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Recovery From Bulimia

Recovery from bulimia can be anywhere, it can be from a recurring clinical session, it can be through drug administration with doctor’s approval, and it can be at home where the family and friends of the sufferer are. The most important part of the whole recovery from bulimia process is coming from the household. Logic for this is pretty simple; individuals who undergo professional help only spend about 45 minutes to about an hour with their doctor or therapist. The rest of the time they spend with their family and friends. Thus recovery from bulimia usually involves more time with their family, friends, and the people who are closest to the sufferer.

Research has revealed that recovery from bulimia can be a more pleasant and easy ordeal for the sufferer when they have the support of their family and friends. Oftentimes a family therapy is more effective than a solo therapy in battling bulimia, whereas other bulimia therapy methods where the family was not involved in the recovery showed a much higher failure rate in long term improvement. Sufferers just relapse at home after a therapy due to lack of support from family and friends.

In order for the road to recovery from bulimia be successful, the sufferer must attend therapy sessions together with his or her family. This makes the sufferer think that he or she is not isolated and that they have someone who can help them face the enormous burden they are facing in the mist of therapy. Emotional support is also needed so as to prevent the sufferer from slipping back into his or her bulimic tendencies.

For a sufferer’s recovery to bulimia be more effective and one that is good for the long run, his or her family members should be educated about the eating disorder. The family should be aware of what are the causes that lead the sufferer to engage in bulimic actions. This gives the family a chance to influence the way a sufferer thinks and feels about certain things that have caused them to go bulimic.

The road to recovery from bulimia is a very important road that every family member of the sufferer of bulimia must take. This is for them to know and be more familiar with how to prevent the disorder from reoccurring and how they can help each other from going down the same path.

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Relationship Between Bulimia and Pregnancy

Bulimia and pregnancy coming together is not a negative thing always contrary to what many people believe. In fact bulimic women who become pregnant actually improve their condition. Bulimic pregnant women give so much concern for their baby that they tend to care more for themselves and thus gradually eradicate the eating disorder that they have. Also due to the fact that pregnant women are faced with the pressure of caring for themselves and the baby the right way, they are expected to look beautiful and healthy most especially when they are pregnant. As everyone else expects that a pregnant woman should not be thin.

Studies have revealed that bulimia and pregnancy cancel out one another on a neurological level specifically in a woman’s mood and appetite. Pregnant women develop hormones that regulate their appetite and mood, thus returning them to their eating habits before they became bulimic.

Bulimia and pregnancy is a very unsound kind of agreement. Pregnancy is not even a solution in itself to bulimia. This is because women who are bulimic during pregnancy may be able to eliminate their bulimic tendencies during pregnancy, but because of the fact that bulimia takes years before one can conquer it, after the pregnancy women may revert back to their bulimic tendencies. Pregnant women often hit postpartum depressions which can lead to a return to their eating disorder.

There are dangers that accompany bulimia and pregnancy and they appear to be exponentially higher. For those women who are still under the eating disorder during pregnancy presents a danger to the fetus inside her. Bulimia prevents the fetus to acquire the nutrients that they need. Plus pregnant women are more prone to malnutrition and other dangers that revolve around bulimia. Thus bulimia and pregnancy more often than not present sever danger not only to themselves but to the baby that they carry.

When a woman encounters both bulimia and pregnancy, doctors rely heavily on counselling and observation to ensure that their bulimic tendencies are prevented and make sure its causes are eliminated. Bulimia and pregnancy reinforces a continuous cycle of guilt and shame that makes the condition a lot worse. If you are bulimic and pregnant, or you know someone close to you who is, be extra cautious and observant so that it is ensured that the mother and the child’s health are not at risk.

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