Bulimia: Finding Freedom Can Be Deadly
Tina Dunaway was 18 when she started binging and purging. The stresses of senior year seemed overwhelming, her boyfriend broke up with her, and she was rejected by her first college pick. Tina felt out of control and the year went on she desperately sought some sort of validity and strength in her young and hopeful life. One morning she did the unthinkable - she caused herself to throw up. It was exhilarating and she felt free. Soon she began to do it more often. And although she felt physically ill from it, her grounding came back. Of course that was until she felt her depression coming on again, eating her up from the inside. Then she would purge. In a sense, she felt as if she was purging herself of all of her problems and her doubts. Tina was letting go. She was letting go of herself…
Purging to prevent weight gain is a way for people - usually young women with bulimia to feel more in control of their lives and to ease stress and anxiety. Often times they don’t even sense anything is truly wrong.
Classified as an eating disorder, bulimia can be much more difficult to spot than anorexia. People with bulimia are usually of average or slightly above average weight and the signs aren’t always clear. Chronic binging and purging leads to many health problems-some of which are life-threatening. For many, the side effects of bulimia - while dangerous - are mostly unseen. The teeth and mouth are often affected, though others might not notice. Frequent vomiting brings up stomach acid into the mouth, eroding teeth enamel. Cavities and gum infections are common in people with bulimia. The stomach acid also irritates the esophagus, producing heartburn, and the salivary glands, making them swell.
Other common medical complications and adverse effects of bulimia include internal physical damage, such as chronic irregular bowel movements due to abusing laxatives. The most dangerous side effect of bulimia is dehydration due to purging. Vomiting, laxatives, and diuretics can cause electrolyte imbalances in the body, most commonly in the form of low potassium levels. Low potassium levels trigger a wide range of symptoms ranging from lethargy and cloudy thinking to irregular heartbeat and death. Chronically-low levels of potassium can also result in kidney failure.
Ultimately bulimia’s effects can lead to multiple health complications later on and for many women this can mean death.
The emotional side effects of bulimia may include:
Overwhelming sense of isolation
Feelings of shame and guilt
Depression symptoms
Low self-esteem.
Because bulimia is the result of a variety of psychological, cultural, familial and biological causes, curing it is rarely simple. It requires professional assistance to treat effectively. Ten percent of people with bulimia eventually die from its effects, usually from the electrolyte imbalance caused by dehydration. Of course this doesn’t factor in suicide, which can be a result of severe depression made only worse by bulimia nervosa.
The sad fact that most women with bulimia could have been able to return to a normal life if they had sought help early on, should be a wake up call to many medical and eating disorder professionals. With more knowledge and awareness many people can be saved.
Andrew Beckers
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/bulimia-finding-freedom-can-be-deadly-550134.html
Bulimia Affected Teens
Bulimia is an eating disorder that mostly affects young women of 12. Characteristics of bulimia include episodic binge eating followed by feelings of guilt and self-condemnation. Bulimia can actually damage a person’s stomach and kidneys as a result of constant vomiting. Bulimia can also cause a person’s teeth to decay because of the acids that come up into the mouth while vomiting. Teens suffering from bulimia often show signs of the eating disorder by eating a large amount of food in a small time frame and immediately purging themselves of the food ingested by causing themselves to vomit.
Difference between Bulimia and Anorexia:
Bulimia is a bit different from anorexia because the person with bulimia doesn’t avoid eating. Instead, he or she eats a large amount of food then gets rid of it quickly by vomiting or taking laxatives. Like anorexia, bulimia tends to affect girls and young women more than guys. A teen that is bulimic can have some of the same symptoms as an anorexic, but she may not lose much weight and may actually appear healthy.
Symptoms of Bulimia:
Makes excuses to go to the bathroom immediately after meals
Eats huge amounts of food, but doesn’t gain weight
Uses laxatives or diuretics
Withdraws from social activities
Prevention of Bulimia:
There are the few steps that parents, teachers, coaches and others who work with teens can take to help avoid bulimia. Tips are:
· Modifying and adapting expectations you have of your teen.
· Examining your own perceptions and attitudes towards food, body image, physical appearance and exercise.
· Do not give off the message that you cannot do activities such as dance, swim, or wear certain types of clothing because of the way you look or how much you weigh.
· Encourage eating in response to physical hunger.
· Encourage eating a variety of foods.
· Help teens to appreciate their bodies and encourage them to engage in physical activity.
· Do not use food as a reward or punishment.
· Do not criticize your own weight or the way you look by avoiding the use of such phrases as “I’m too fat” or “I’ve got to lose weight.”
· Love, accept, and acknowledge the teen’s value verbally.
Treatment for teens suffering from bulimia has been advancing in recent years. There are the few web sites that are very useful for you:
http://www.troubledteensguide.com
http://www.troubled-teens.biz
The sites help you to understand effective communication, and then show you how to overcome your specific problems and in the best possible way. It specifically designed to support the parents of Troubled Teens. The purpose of communication is to get your message across to others clearly. Their services are devoted to the parent who is overwhelmed and in need of immediate assistance (coaching) in order to locate the perfect troubled teen school or program for their child. Troubled teens guide is a listing of articles specifically designed to support the parents of Troubled Teens. It provides them proper guidance about teenâs problems and in the process save the parent time, energy, and thousands of dollars.
Monica Craft
http://www.articlesbase.com/k-12-education-articles/bulimia-affected-teens-91737.html
Bulimia Nervosa-women Problem
In remission within three months of treatment can be found between 60% and 80% of patients. About 10% to 25% of patients have bulimia itself and many of these patients are women, which continue to battle disordered eating habits for years. Unfortunately relapse is common for bulimia.
Bulimic people with normal weight and do not go on to become anorexic have major health problems so in case of adolescent patients with anorexia had found abnormal heart rhythms but not in case of patients with bulimia. A great danger is for patients which have bulimia and anorexia. Health problems and serious risks appear in this case.
With bulimia can be associated some medical problems like: teeth erosion, cavities, and gum problems, water retention, swelling, and abdominal bloating, fluid loss with low potassium levels which occur from excessive vomiting or laxative use but in severe cases it can cause extreme weakness, near paralysis, or lethal heart rhythms, acute stomach distress, rupture of the esophagus, or food pipe, problems in swallowing caused by repetitive assaults on the esophagus (the food pipe) from forced vomiting.
Other medical problems can be irregular menstrual periods and rarely weakened rectal walls that requires surgery. Although may appear many complications like cesarean sections, postpartum depression, miscarriages and complicated deliveries, healthy pregnancies are met to pregnant women with a history of eating disorder. In this case their babies can have a higher risk for low birth weight, prematurity, and malformation.
This disease presents some self-destructive behaviors. So many teenage girls with eating disorders smoke because they thought that in this way can be prevented weight gain. Impulsive behaviors, like sexual promiscuity, self-cutting, and kleptomania are met in half of women who present bulimia . Alcohol, drugs or both are consumed by 30% to 70% of patients with bulimia, rate which is higher than for the general population and in people with anorexia. Reports of bulimia shows that substance abuse is lower than in people with anorexia.
Usually women with bulimia abuse over-the-counter medications which cause vomiting like laxatives, appetite suppressants, diuretics, and drugs (e.g., ipecac). These drugs can have some risks. For example have been reported ipecac poisonings and dependence on laxatives for normal bowel functioning. Also the diet pills can be risky if they are abused.
Unfortunately many women, and especially teenage girls suffer of bulimia because they consider that losing weight is a good thing.Unfortunately they do not realize that they are risking their lives.
For more resources regarding pro anorexia or anorexia please review this website http://www.anorexia-center.com
Groshan Fabiola
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/bulimia-nervosawomen-problem-131433.html
How does bulimia using laxatives work?
I'm writing a paper for a health class and i'm just not too sure on how the laxatives part works. I know how the vomitting works inside and outside.
Things i'd like to know:
side effects (negative AND positive; including time frames if possible)
why it's "better" than iduced vomitting
why it's "worse" than iduced vomitting
how nutrition is obtained (ie the "marker" in vomitting)
how often one is compelled to purge
how often or how long one is compelled to binge
how long is the inteval in between "feeding periods"
I am open to facts from anyone qualified to diagnose eating disorders, to a person who has a friend who is/was, to someone who is currently/has suffered bulimia.
Please and Thanks
Sure, it can work, but it can also be deadly.
Laxitives cause food to pass through the system bofore its nutrients have had time to be absorbed by the body. But by doing this, you are depleting the body of important fluids and electrolytes that are needed for every organ to function properly, including the heart.
Inducing vomiting however is damaging to the esophagus and can cause tears, swelling and scarring there. It also destroys the enamal of the teeth. Nutrition is obtained through it's absorption in the small and large intestine, so any means in which food either passes to quickly (laxitives) or never makes it to the small/large intestine (vomiting) prevents adequate nutrition intake. One is compelled to purge when they feel they have taken in an excess of food. True binge eaters can consume as many as 20,000 calories in one sitting (ten times what you should get in a day). The interval between binging periods varies from person to person, but as time goes on, it usually becomes more frequent.
