Bulimia causes damaging side effects to the body. It can also destroy the brain, heart and the soul of the person suffering from this eating disorder.
There is no one system in the body that does not get affected by long term bulimia.
What are the most dangerous side effects? – You may ask. These are the effects people can die from. Lets look at them separately.
1. Heart complications. Many eating disorder sufferers have irregular heartbeat, slow pulse or palpitations. All these abnormalities are extremely dangerous especially if the person continues with binging-purging. People can suddenly collapse and even die if the heart suddenly stops working going into condition called “heart block”.
2. Electrolyte abnormalities. Electrolytes are the chemicals in the body that help our organs work. When people vomit they lose enormous amount electrolytes this is very bad for the body. The organs that suffer the most are: heart, kidney and brain. An abnormal amount of electrolytes can cause heart block, kidney failure and fainting. Any of these complications can end up with the sufferer dying.
3. Kidney failure. The kidneys are the organs that balance water and electrolytes in the body. Vomiting causes both dehydration and electrolyte imbalance problems. The kidneys try to compensate for this but if the vomiting continues the kidneys stop working and go into kidney failure.
4. Mental problems. Mental problems in bulimics are especially dangerous because of the high rate of suicide amongst eating disorder sufferers. When people get highly addicted to binging-purging behaviour, they often become unable to cope with everyday life and use suicide as a way to escape from the black circle they find themselves in.
5. Drug and alcohol problems are often the next step in for the bulimic. Bulimics get addicted easier than people who don’t have bulimia. This is the nature of the disorder. Of course, where drugs and alcohol are involved the incidence of accidental death increases enormously. People die from an accidental overdose of drugs and organs failure.
6. Gullet rapture. Gullet or oesophagus is the tube that connects the mouth and the stomach. When people vomit they force the food to come up from the stomach, through the gullet and up into the mouth. If the vomiting becomes severe, gullet rapture can occur. The sufferer can die from internal bleeding and shock.
To sum up, these are the most dangerous side effects of bulimia. There are many more which may not cause the death of the patient but damage the body and make it malfunction. You can prevent all these complications just by looking for help and doing something constructive about your bulimia.
Even learning more about the condition and what you can do to help yourself will push you forward towards recovery. Never stop resisting the disease and never give up fighting for your health and your life.
For more Information go to www.eating-disorders-books.com
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
How does bulimia cause weight loss?
Bulimia and weight loss are two things that interest many people. Nowadays nearly everyone wants to know a fast and easy method to lose extra weight. Bulimia is considered by some people as one of this easy ways to become slim.
But how does it work, if it works at all?
When people become bulimic they start to throw up food after eating. Often they binge before vomiting. Most bulimics have a certain time when they binge: dinner time, sometime in the afternoon or at night.
These people believe that by vomiting they get rid of the food they ate. Because of that they think they satisfy their hunger and reduce the amount of calories at the same time. In fact, it is not exactly true.
First, when bulimics binge, some foods still get absorbed by digestive tract before they throw up. This is especially true for fatty and sugary foods, which are the bulimics favourite foods. The longer the binge, the more calories get absorbed.
Second, after vomiting bulimics have the “empty stomach effect”. Their appetite increases drastically and this can evoke another binge. Some people can have several binging-purging episodes during the day because of their inability to control the hunger pains after vomiting. And again, as a result of this they consume overall much more calories than if they had just had a normal meal.
Vomiting also changes their electrolytes and nutrient balance in the body. Their Insulin producing system suffers enormously also. The Insulin system is the system that breaks down sugar in the body. That’s why during the day bulimics often munch sweets, breads, biscuits, chocolate, cakes and the like. This can push their calorie consumption up through the roof, making them put on weight the exact opposite of what they are trying to achieve.
Of course you may say that some bulimics are slim. But most of these people are slim because they fast during the day and eat only when they are binging-purging. To say in other words those who alternate between bulimia and anorexia and never eat normally.
So, bulimia on its own will not cause any decrease in weight at all. But complicating bulimia by adding anorexic behaviours will cause severe illness and even death.
If you are thinking of using bulimia as a way to lose weight – than think again: because you are cheating on yourself and putting your life in danger also. If you have already started on bulimic path of behaviour, you should find help to stop it before the addiction becomes overpowering.
There are lots of help available and you should pick the one which suits you.
For more information go to www.eating-disorders-books.com
But how does it work, if it works at all?
When people become bulimic they start to throw up food after eating. Often they binge before vomiting. Most bulimics have a certain time when they binge: dinner time, sometime in the afternoon or at night.
These people believe that by vomiting they get rid of the food they ate. Because of that they think they satisfy their hunger and reduce the amount of calories at the same time. In fact, it is not exactly true.
First, when bulimics binge, some foods still get absorbed by digestive tract before they throw up. This is especially true for fatty and sugary foods, which are the bulimics favourite foods. The longer the binge, the more calories get absorbed.
Second, after vomiting bulimics have the “empty stomach effect”. Their appetite increases drastically and this can evoke another binge. Some people can have several binging-purging episodes during the day because of their inability to control the hunger pains after vomiting. And again, as a result of this they consume overall much more calories than if they had just had a normal meal.
Vomiting also changes their electrolytes and nutrient balance in the body. Their Insulin producing system suffers enormously also. The Insulin system is the system that breaks down sugar in the body. That’s why during the day bulimics often munch sweets, breads, biscuits, chocolate, cakes and the like. This can push their calorie consumption up through the roof, making them put on weight the exact opposite of what they are trying to achieve.
Of course you may say that some bulimics are slim. But most of these people are slim because they fast during the day and eat only when they are binging-purging. To say in other words those who alternate between bulimia and anorexia and never eat normally.
So, bulimia on its own will not cause any decrease in weight at all. But complicating bulimia by adding anorexic behaviours will cause severe illness and even death.
If you are thinking of using bulimia as a way to lose weight – than think again: because you are cheating on yourself and putting your life in danger also. If you have already started on bulimic path of behaviour, you should find help to stop it before the addiction becomes overpowering.
There are lots of help available and you should pick the one which suits you.
For more information go to www.eating-disorders-books.com
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Will a University Course really help Understand Eating Didorders?
It was with great interest I read the press release “University course to study bulimia and anorexia” 11-11-10 on the Wales online website.
The Cardiff University is putting together a Collaborative Working in Eating Disorders module to be studied as part of the School’s MSc in Advanced Practice by the university’s school of nursing.
Although this seems a noble cause I do get a little concerned when academia and governments gets involved with the treatment or suggested treatment of a disorder.
Academics are renowned for not being able to think outside the square and get bogged down with dogma, so will concentrate on the so called conventional approach to eating disorders.
Governments are even worse tending to back the established approach even if it does not work, they can’t afford any political backlash if they make a mistake. Plus it is always good to be seen as doing something in the eyes of the voters. So to save themselves down the track they also back the conventional approach.
From reading the article it seems apparent that the course will have its basis on the conventional approach to the treatment of eating disorders and this is worrying and will only produce much of the same thinking that is prevalent now.
As an eating disorder specialist, author of two books on the subject and an ex-sufferer of anorexia and bulimia myself: I know the conventional approach is not that great. I myself did the rounds of therapists etc, to no avail for years and I was training to be a doctor, so you would think it should have worked.
I am not the only person who has gone through multiple treatments only to find they did not work; I get emails everyday from people telling me the same thing.
Here are a few abbreviated emails.
I am helping a young adult girl whom I have become extremely fond of!... At the age of 14 she became anorexic and eventually bulimic. She has been in clinics a number of times, but every time she just goes home things just continue where she left off...
Charleen SA.
My daughter is 22 years old and she was suffering ED for 2 years... For your information she has been treated in the ED clinic as outpatient, visiting the internist doctor and the psychologist regularly to no avail...
Li Australia.
My daughter has been in and out the eating disorder clinic in Minneapolis, Minnesota for the last 4 years. I’m tired of them, she continues to struggle...
D M USA.
I took her to our health care Clinic and they seemed to have a handle on the disorder and they seemed to be helping with all kinds of counseling, nutritionist, psychiatrist and nursing... but once home she "back-slid" back into binging and purging.
VF, GB.
These emails are very typical from people contacting me still searching for answers when the conventional treatments have failed.
There is a very good reason why this happens and why sufferers fail to get better after showing promise while in the clinic? Conventional treatment methods do not confront the disorder where it lives in the subconscious mind of the sufferer.
They do not understand that an eating disorder is a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
But unlike the person who has to wash their hands 100 times a day, or the sufferer who has to check to see if the gas is turned off 200 times before they can leave their home. These people get nothing but pain from their OCD, whereas the ED sufferer actually gets pleasure from their disordered eating habits.
This extra element of pleasure adds a different dimension to the disorder and is most difficult to treat with conventional approaches used in clinics and by therapists. Sitting and talking to a therapist rehashing old hurts for hours is not going to help. This is a logical approach to a disorder that is not the least bit logical. After all why would someone purposely starve themselves to death and know they are doing it?
In my view there is really only one method that can beat an eating disorder and that is one that attacks the ED where it lives in the subconscious mind of the sufferer. To do this you have to use the power of Neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the ability to change the way our brain functions by how we think, feel and act.
With the use of specialized methods to promote positive feelings, emotions, action and pictures we can change the faulty neuronal pathways and negative programming that has occurred in mind of the sufferer. The beauty of using a specialized neuroplasticity approach to curing eating disorders is it can be used at home.
This is the place all ED sufferers fail and relapse back into their old habits, because the triggers that control their habits are all at home, they are not in the clinic or therapists rooms.
I believe that any university course however noble it may seem if it does not incorporate the use of neuroplasticity and a method to change the neuronal pathways in the brain will not help. This will only produce a whole new batch of conventional method thinkers to the detriment of the eating disorder sufferer.
To read more about the power of neuroplasicity for eating disorders go to
http://www.eating-disorders-books.com
The Cardiff University is putting together a Collaborative Working in Eating Disorders module to be studied as part of the School’s MSc in Advanced Practice by the university’s school of nursing.
Although this seems a noble cause I do get a little concerned when academia and governments gets involved with the treatment or suggested treatment of a disorder.
Academics are renowned for not being able to think outside the square and get bogged down with dogma, so will concentrate on the so called conventional approach to eating disorders.
Governments are even worse tending to back the established approach even if it does not work, they can’t afford any political backlash if they make a mistake. Plus it is always good to be seen as doing something in the eyes of the voters. So to save themselves down the track they also back the conventional approach.
From reading the article it seems apparent that the course will have its basis on the conventional approach to the treatment of eating disorders and this is worrying and will only produce much of the same thinking that is prevalent now.
As an eating disorder specialist, author of two books on the subject and an ex-sufferer of anorexia and bulimia myself: I know the conventional approach is not that great. I myself did the rounds of therapists etc, to no avail for years and I was training to be a doctor, so you would think it should have worked.
I am not the only person who has gone through multiple treatments only to find they did not work; I get emails everyday from people telling me the same thing.
Here are a few abbreviated emails.
I am helping a young adult girl whom I have become extremely fond of!... At the age of 14 she became anorexic and eventually bulimic. She has been in clinics a number of times, but every time she just goes home things just continue where she left off...
Charleen SA.
My daughter is 22 years old and she was suffering ED for 2 years... For your information she has been treated in the ED clinic as outpatient, visiting the internist doctor and the psychologist regularly to no avail...
Li Australia.
My daughter has been in and out the eating disorder clinic in Minneapolis, Minnesota for the last 4 years. I’m tired of them, she continues to struggle...
D M USA.
I took her to our health care Clinic and they seemed to have a handle on the disorder and they seemed to be helping with all kinds of counseling, nutritionist, psychiatrist and nursing... but once home she "back-slid" back into binging and purging.
VF, GB.
These emails are very typical from people contacting me still searching for answers when the conventional treatments have failed.
There is a very good reason why this happens and why sufferers fail to get better after showing promise while in the clinic? Conventional treatment methods do not confront the disorder where it lives in the subconscious mind of the sufferer.
They do not understand that an eating disorder is a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
But unlike the person who has to wash their hands 100 times a day, or the sufferer who has to check to see if the gas is turned off 200 times before they can leave their home. These people get nothing but pain from their OCD, whereas the ED sufferer actually gets pleasure from their disordered eating habits.
This extra element of pleasure adds a different dimension to the disorder and is most difficult to treat with conventional approaches used in clinics and by therapists. Sitting and talking to a therapist rehashing old hurts for hours is not going to help. This is a logical approach to a disorder that is not the least bit logical. After all why would someone purposely starve themselves to death and know they are doing it?
In my view there is really only one method that can beat an eating disorder and that is one that attacks the ED where it lives in the subconscious mind of the sufferer. To do this you have to use the power of Neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the ability to change the way our brain functions by how we think, feel and act.
With the use of specialized methods to promote positive feelings, emotions, action and pictures we can change the faulty neuronal pathways and negative programming that has occurred in mind of the sufferer. The beauty of using a specialized neuroplasticity approach to curing eating disorders is it can be used at home.
This is the place all ED sufferers fail and relapse back into their old habits, because the triggers that control their habits are all at home, they are not in the clinic or therapists rooms.
I believe that any university course however noble it may seem if it does not incorporate the use of neuroplasticity and a method to change the neuronal pathways in the brain will not help. This will only produce a whole new batch of conventional method thinkers to the detriment of the eating disorder sufferer.
To read more about the power of neuroplasicity for eating disorders go to
http://www.eating-disorders-books.com
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