The most dangerous side effects of bulimia.

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.

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