| An abnormality in the food habits acquires an original epidemic dimension, especially among young girls, striving to imitate their celebrity idols. Nervous anorexia - formally called anorexia nervosa – is a bad systemic disease, of which, unfortunately, not everybody is familiar.
It's hard to find who is to blame in this eating disorder. Anorexia does not at all mean that the child was not brought up well by the parents. Cultural, genetic and individual factors closely interact with the developments of life, which gives a favorable ground for the rise of the development of a disturbance in the food habits of a psychological character.
In anorexia there is no pleasure. Many people, who obey the consumptive diets, rashly state, that they are dreaming to be anorexic. They see only evident developments of this sickness – however don’t notice all dangers of this “fancy” disease.
Anorexia patients aren't proud of their ideal figure and don't feel themselves unimaginably beautiful; if you speak with such persons, you will come to know many new things about them – for example, that a girl, weighing 55 kilograms with a height of a meter eighty, considers herself belonging to the fat people category, not beautiful and not stylish. Anorexia patients suffer from an intemperate feeling of self failure; they are feared and driven into a corner by self fear.
It’s not so simple to get rid of anorexia. The consciousness of the patients with anorexia doesn’t belong to them, they cannot control their feelings. Such persons are literally intellectual obsessed regarding their weight, food, extra calories and the form of their own body. Many of the diseased are tortured even during sleep – they are haunted by nightmares, obtrusive dreams about food and nutrition. And during sleep the poor sufferer and martyr keeps on counting calories and gets frightened with 100 collected grams. Anorexia – the most violent disease, which snatches out its victim from normal life and dooms her to loneliness. Anorexia hardly gives away to treatment. Sometimes a war with it goes on for years.
Anorexia may lead to a lethal outcome. By the way anorexia holds the highest percentage of mortality among psychological diseases. In case you or someone you know appears to have the symptoms of the disturbance in food habits, act with out delay – approach a doctor for help.
The specific symptoms of anorexia: The patient with anorexia primarily differs in a reluctance of preserving the weight, corresponding to his constitution, age and height. To be accurate, the normal weight of an individual must make 85% or a lesser percentage of weight, which is considered as a standard for a human being of such a physique, age and height.
Generally, the victim of anorexia continuously feels the relentless horror of becoming fat and adding extra weight, where this fear covers away all other feelings and emotions. This fear does not consider the real weight of the person, and does not relieve its victims even when it is at the step of death from exhaustion. First of all, the causes for anorexia are self-rated lowly, which is also one of the basic symptoms of this serious illness. The patient with anorexia considers, that his weight, parameters of the figure and sizes are directly related to self-sensation and individual status. Victims of anorexia often deny the seriousness of their condition and could not count their weight visually.
One more symptom characteristic for women is the disturbance in the menstrual cycle and absence of at least three menstruations in order. Particularly, for women it is diagnosed as “amenorrhea” (absence of menstruation), if at all menstruation starts for her it is only after hormonal therapy (for example, the intake of estrogen).
There are two different types of nervous anorexia:
- Restricted – the patient voluntarily restricts food intake and does not over eat till it is dumped, and afterwards induce vomiting.
- Purgative – the patient over eats, and afterwards induces vomiting or abuse of weak, diuretics or enemas.
In distinction from depression or the panic of an assault, nervous anorexia is poorly treated. There are no universal and effective medicines against anorexia. First of all, doctors write medicines of general prescriptions, which are used for any problems regarding health, for example, the anomaly of electrolysis or the disorder of cardiac rhythm.
Antidepressants: Most of the patients with nervous anorexia also suffer from depression, and some of the symptoms of this disease could be put aside with the help of antidepressants. However, there is no given data, proving effectiveness of antidepressants in the treatment of anorexia. More over antidepressants may have different side effects, which will only aggravate the condition of the patient. Experiments have shown that anorexia treatment will be more effective, when the weight of the patients approaches normal.
Tranquilizers: short acting tranquilizers under the name benzodiazepines may help patients of anorexia to overcome the danger. These medicines cause addiction that is why it is not worth while to take them for the treatment of patients with narcotic or alcoholic dependence.
Estrogen: women, suffering from anorexia are subject to a high risk of formation of ruptures; this is because of osteoporosis. Absence of menstruation and low weight may provoke the condition, near to early menopause. There are opinions, as if the intake of estrogen may help some women compensate the insufficiency of minerals in the bones and prevent the formation of fissures in future.
In those conditions, when anorexia accompanies severe disease, and also the weight of the patient falls repeatedly and comes to less than 15% of normal weight, immediate hospitalization is necessary.
The concept of Anorexia (translation from Greek “without the urge to eat”) has deeply penetrated in modern use - the full refusal to eat a meal or the abrupt restriction of food intake with an aim to grow thin or for preventive maintenance against collecting excess weight under the influence of "valuable" ideas. During the primary stages, the consequences of the specified disease at a physiological level are: paleness of the skin, sensation of cold, disorders of the menstrual cycle, arrhythmia, constant weakness and muscular spasms. Psychological conditions are characterized by increased irritability, unreasonable fits of anger, unsociability. During advanced stages, anorexia leads to a lethal result, it occupies first place in percentage ratio in the death rate amongst psychological diseases |
