Bulimia

Bulimia

Nothing to see with a large pang of hunger, the bulimia is a disorder differently major. The person compulsive eater does not find pleasure to eat. At the time of a crisis compulsive eater, only one thing counts for this person: ingurgiter greatest quantity of possible food.

The bulimia represents with the anorexia a disorder of food behavior. If the two diseases are opposed, seemingly, they are often recut (importance of the representation of its physical appearance) and the solutions are based appreciably on the same treatments based on psychotherapy and dietetic education.

The obsession of food like a “drug”

The bulimia is a food disorder of control which one often connects with a addictive attitude. The people compulsive eaters have the same behavior with food as some with a drug. This disorder touches especially the women, the teenagers, but the men also are concerned. It is a disease of the “shame” which is lived in clandestinity. The people compulsive eaters inevitably do not have a problem of balance, the majority keep even a standard weight. This is why the disorders can be difficult to detect, the more so as these people do not speak easily about their problem. In France, one estimates all the same at approximately 2% the number of women suffering from bulimia including 4 to 8% within the population coed. One counts a man for ten women.

Crises of voracity

The bulimia often evolves/moves by crises. The individual feels taken an irrepressible desire suddenly to eat, independent of the hunger. One speaks about “compulsives crises”. In these circumstances the quantity of introduced food can be important and over a rather short time. The person swallows with all goes, without really paying attention so that she eats. At the end of the crisis, shame is the feeling dominating. Shame to have cracked, shame to eat and fear of growing bigger. To alleviate this feeling of guilt, this person will seek to eliminate this too great quantity from food. She can then be made vomit, use laxatives or the diurétiques ones and be essential extremely restrictive periods of fast, a little as in the anorexia. There these two diseases have common aspects besides (the people anorexics can also have crises compulsive eaters), certain specialists see the two slopes of the same pathology.

Control compulsive eater can involve, with time, of the serious medical problems. The abuse laxatives and diuretic can be harmful for the kidneys, the vomiting causes the increase in the esophagus and the oral cavity of the gastric juices. Thus, it can occur an ignition of the gums, a deterioration of the teeth… In certain more serious cases, can even occur lesions of the esophagus of the stomach.

To fill while eating

The origin of the bulimia is not yet clearly identified. The specialists speak about multifactorielles causes. It is often associated with a depressive behavior or an emotional lack and with regard of oneself. The family unit is often disturbed around the teenager.

To find the taste

The assumption of responsibility of the person reached of bulimia generally implies several specialists. The psychiatrist or the psychotherapist intervenes by proposing various forms of therapies like the behavioral and cognitive therapies or the psychoanalysis. With these assumptions of responsibility, a “food education is added”. With a dietetician, the patient will relearn to eat in a balanced way. Nothing is indeed used for to make a mode or to eliminate any heating food. The body needs some and will make it feel at a given time. It is necessary on the contrary to find the listening of its body, to eat must correspond to a need, the hunger, it is this concept that these patients do not have any more.

When the depressive symptoms are very marked and harm the course of the therapy, the doctor can prescribe antidepressants but they do not exempt a psychological support.

In general, the assumption of responsibility of the bulimia can be long, but gives often gives good performances, even if relapses are possible.

Our councils

> The assumption of responsibility of this problem can be carried out in a psychiatrist knowing the nutrition well, or at a nutritionnist with a good experiment of the disorders of food behaviors.

> The catch of load is carried out by stages, by carrying out on you a sometimes difficult work, even painful. Thus, one of the first stages is to leave shame, then refusal… and finally to be detached from the “false beliefs” that you made on your body and the food.