Treatment For Bulimia And Anorexia

treatment for bulimia and anorexia

Anorexia and bulimia are the most common eating disorders, especially in adolescence females. As quoted from Online Medical Dictionary, bulimia means episodic binge eating; the episodes may be associated with the fear of not being able to stop eating, depressed mood, or self-deprecating thoughts (binge-eating disorder), may frequently be terminated by self induced vomitting as compensate for the effects of binge eating. This also called bulimia nervosa. While anorexia nervosa is syndrome in which the primary features include excessive fear of becoming fatty/overweight, body image disturbance, significant weight loss, refusal to maintain minimal normal weight, and amenorrhea. This disorder happens most on adolescent women. Both of bulimia and anorexia are not just eating disorders, but mental health problems. They are associated with symptoms of depression and social adaptation failure. 

What is the difference of bulimia and anorexia?

Anorexia is different from bulimia in the binging vomiting and purging cycle. Bulimia patients usually have normal weight, while anorexia patients usually underweight. Overall, bulimia is a more serious condition than anorexia.

Symptoms and Sign

There are three major symptoms of bulimia:

• Eating large amounts of food and then feeling control-loss of it
• Followed by inappropriate compensatory behaviors like: using laxative, fasting, self induced vomiting, obsessive compulsive physical exercises
• Extreme care about body shape and body weight

According to Mayo Clinic, anorexia nervosa shows extreme underweight-related symptoms, such as: thin appearance, abnormal blood counts (anemia, etc), fatigue, insomnia, dizziness, absence of menstruation, constipation, dry skin, dehidration, osteoporosis, etc. Emotional characteristics related to anorexia include: refusal to eat, denial of hunger, excessive exercise, flat emotion, irritability, depression, abnormal use of herbal diet products, reduced sexual desire, etc.

Chronic bulimia and anorexia will lead to some health disturbances, such as:

• Electrolyte (sodium and potassium) imbalance, because of purging behaviors. Extreme electrolyte imbalance may possible cause heart failure and death. 
• Frequent stimuli of vomiting may cause inflammation and rupture of the esophagus.
• Excessive eating can cause gastric rupture.
• Bowel disturbances and constipation caused by inappropriate use of laxatives.

Treatment for bulimia and anorexia is a long term treatment. Initial assessment should be done properly and as early as possible, consists of how severe the problems are, and if there are medical conditions that need special hospital management, such as: severely malnourished.. Outpatient treatments for bulimia and anorexia are described below.

• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).  Main purposes of CBT are training you how to eat healthy diets properly and regularly, reduce your worry or concerns about body weight, control emotions and desire to binge eating, develop skills to prevent future relapse.
• Nutritional therapy, involves dietician or nutritionist. They will teach about meal plan to reach and maintain a normal and healthy body weight 
• Pharmacological therapy, especially antidepressants such as Prozac. The goals are relieving symptoms of depression and also reducing binge eating cycles .