Treatment for Bulimia
Casa Palmera is a treatment facility intended to provide overall healing to its residents. We emphasize cause-based treatment and strive to maintain a holistic approach to healing. This holistic approach takes a look at the whole person and attempts to achieve a healthy balance by addressing each individual aspect in a person’s life. By using this approach, we hope to not only eliminate physical symptoms and merely provide a quick remedy to the problem, but to consider the in-depth causes of your disorder.
Our Clinical Diagnostic Assessment enables our professional team to create for you an individualized program that will help with your unique situation and address these in-depth causes.
Our staff here at Casa Palmera understands the seriousness of an eating disorder such as bulimia and the emotional effects it can have on an individual. Our various psychotherapy courses can help a great deal with someone facing bulimia. These sessions address symptoms and any current dilemmas associated with your disorder, as well as help you cope with past issues. Through these courses and numerous other programs here, we intend to reverse any negative thinking in regards to overall health and provide for you an experience in bulimia recovery that will enrich your knowledge and release your full potential in the world.
What you should know about bulimia
Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder in which someone is preoccupied with food due to their perception of a distorted body image. Someone with bulimia goes through periods of binging and purging. They will consume large amounts of food to a point of uncomfortable fullness and then proceed to vomit out what they have previously eaten through self-induced vomiting, or through the use of laxatives and diuretics.
Women make up a greater percentage of those with bulimia than men do, about 90%, but this disorder affects people from all walks of life. This disorder tends to have a later onset than the other eating disorder, anorexia. Most people who develop bulimia develop it between the ages of 10 and 25. College students are a very common age group for bulimia to set it, in fact, this disorder affects about 10% of college students in the U.S. today.
The Signs of Bulimia
Unlike anorexia, bulimia is harder to spot because someone with bulimia is typically of a normal weight. Some signs associated with bulimia that can be spotted include the following:
- Swollen cheeks or jaw
- Dehydration
- Binge eats
- Calluses or sores on knuckles
- Going frequently to the bathroom after meals
- Misuse of diuretics, laxatives or enemas
- Stomach problems
- Feels out of control when eating
- Secretive about eating, or hides food
- Broken blood vessels in the eyes
What causes Bulimia?
A variety of factors can contribute to the onset of bulimia. These include:
- Various psychological factors have been shown to be more common in those with bulimia and thus may be a contributing factor to the onset of this disorder. A low sense of self-esteem, anxiety, and those with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) are some of the most common traits.
- The interpersonal environment of an individual plays a large role in affecting an eating disorder. An unstable relationship between various members of the family, as well as a history of physical, verbal, and/or sexual abuse, can be sources of stress in the home.
- The presence of a family member with history of an eating disorder also can play a role in the onset of bulimia. Biological make-up of a person may also affect their chances of developing bulimia. There is some evidence that the brain chemical, serotonin, may have an impact in those who develop bulimia, as serotonin helps to regulates food intake.
- Also, the culture someone lives in greatly affects their susceptibility to this disorder. In Western society today, thinness is an obsession and it is often promoted that to be beautiful or successful one must maintain the perfect body.
All of these factors join to increase a person’s susceptibility to bulimia and oftentimes worsen the condition. Where do you find help for this disorder? Here at Casa Palmera it is our goal to promote a healthy lifestyle and to aid our residents in overcoming their disorders and addictions during their bulimia recovery. We do this not only by addressing the physical aspects of your disorder, but also the psychological aspects.
Our program includes four core elements of recovery. These elements are the medical/psychotherapy core, the lifestyle core, the complementary medicine core and the environmental core, all of which play a key role in the pursuit of further health improvement.
What are the effects of Bulimia?
Bulimia has a whole array of medical complications that can arise as the disorder worsens. These effects will infiltrate every inch of the body both physically and mentally. Some effects of bulimia are:
Physical Effects
- Irregular heart rhythms, heart failure
- Dry skin, callused or sore knuckles
- Sore, swollen cheeks
- Increase in cavities, tooth enamel loss, gum disease
- Stomach ulcers
- Rupturing of the esophagus, soreness
- For women, irregular periods
- Complications of the intestines
- Dependency on laxatives
Emotional Effects
- Depression
- Fluctuating emotions
- Feelings of anxiousness
- Poor self-image
- Feeling out of control
- Isolating oneself from others
Call for help today at 888-481-4481.