What's wrong with sudden overeating

Sudden onset of overeating symptoms may be a sign of bulimia nervosa. Bulimia nervosa may also be a disease caused by a desire mentality. If this symptom occurs, it will cause great harm to a person's health, because excessive food intake will put a great burden on the human stomach and intestines. So, how should bulimia nervosa be treated?

1. Disease Description

It refers to a disease in which the patient has recurring and irresistible desire to eat, and overeating or binge eating behaviors, and after eating, he or she is afraid of gaining weight and uses various methods to lose weight, resulting in no obvious weight changes. The disease occurs mainly in women, and the age of onset is mostly between 18 and 20 years old. It is rare in men. This disease may appear alternately with anorexia nervosa, and the two may have similar pathological psychological mechanisms and gender and age distributions. Most patients are continuators of anorexia nervosa, and their age of onset is later than that of anorexia nervosa.

2. Symptoms and Signs

Patients often have repeated attacks, eating large amounts of food at one time, eating a lot and fast, so it is called binge eating; most people like to choose high-calorie soft sweets, such as cakes, chocolates, etc., and have an uncontrollable eating feeling. They know it is wrong but cannot control it. Patients often pay too much attention to their weight and body shape, and have a fear of gaining weight. During an attack, inappropriate compensatory behaviors are often repeatedly used to avoid gaining weight, including self-induced vomiting, abuse of laxatives, intermittent eating, and use of anorexics. When binge eating occurs with compensatory behaviors and continues for a long time, the results can be dangerous. It may cause water and electrolyte disorders, the most common of which are hypokalemia, hyponatremia, metabolic alkali poisoning, metabolic acidosis, arrhythmia, gastrointestinal damage, etc. Sometimes binge eating disorder begins with reasonable common-sense weight loss, and the patient becomes preoccupied with losing weight and continues to view the body as "fat," which distorts the perception of body image and leads to sudden binge eating. Patients often suffer from depression.

3. Treatment Methods

1. Discover the disease early. Patients and their families should realize that this is a disease and not think that it is just cravings or a bad eating habit.

2. Go to the hospital for treatment. The hospital often uses psychological therapy as the main method and drug therapy as the auxiliary method. In addition to supportive psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy is the main treatment method, which starts with the patient's eating problems and corrects their abnormal behaviors and concepts. Treatment can be done in hospital or outpatient clinics. Antidepressants and antipsychotics are commonly used drugs.

3. Cooperate closely with the doctor for treatment. Bulimia nervosa has a long course and is difficult to treat. The patient's symptoms fluctuate, and the patient must cooperate closely in order to achieve a satisfactory treatment effect.