This article will look at the symptoms of anorexia in girls. What is this disease? How does it manifest?
Anorexia is a specific syndrome in different embodiments, which occurs under the influence of a number of known causes and manifests itself in a complete lack of appetite in a person, despite the fact that there is a specific need for nutrition for the body itself. Symptoms of anorexia, manifested with actual metabolic diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, infectious and viral diseases, as well as with obvious mental disorders will be considered in this article.
Disease Description
Before considering the features of anorexia, it is necessary to dwell on what the condition means, which leads to anorexia, that is, to protein-energy deficiency. Protein deficiency is the result of nutrition, this is due to energy imbalance, as well as protein imbalance and a lack of other types of nutrients, resulting in an undesirable effect that affects tissues and functions.
With anorexia, a protein-energy deficiency occurs against the background of insufficient food intake. At the same time, this condition of the body can also be detected due to dysphagia, diarrhea, chemotherapy, heart failure, radiation therapy, fever, drug treatment and other effects that lead to protein deficiency. Very often anorexia nervosa develops.
Symptoms of this protein-energy deficiency are observed for a number of reasons. There is a decrease in weight in adults (which is not very noticeable in the case of obesity or general swelling), while children do not have the necessary changes in terms of weight gain and height.
Features
Let's pay attention to the final review of the general symptoms of the disease that we were previously interested in. With anorexia (the so-called lack of appetite), patients lose weight, in addition to everything, this disease can develop in parallel with another type of disease (mental, neurotic, somatic disorders). Lack of appetite has a persistent character, which in this case manifests itself together with nausea, and in some cases, vomiting when trying to eat. Along with this, there is a high "saturation" when a feeling of fullness of the stomach exists even with a small amount of food. This symptomatology can manifest itself as unambiguously expressed anorexia, but anorexia symptoms in women and signs of the general condition of the patient may be leading, or be adjacent to a host of other complaints. Diagnosis in this case directly depends on what signs of anorexia are available.
What is accompanied by?
Anorexia may occur during the following conditions:
- Diseases of the endocrine system - diabetes mellitus, thyrotoxicosis, Addison's disease, hypopituitarism and others.
- Malignant neoplasms that have different manifestations and their own different localization properties.
- Helminthiasis.
- Alcoholism, drug addiction.
- Intoxication.
- Depression.
Note that the very definition of "anorexia" is used not only in the meaning of the symptom that this disease represents (lack of appetite), but this symptom also manifests itself in the form of a disease, which, in fact, is anorexia nervosa. Symptoms and treatment are interconnected.
High mortality rate
Pathology is characterized by a very high mortality rate among patients. Namely, on the basis of some studies, you can accurately indicate its indicator - 20%. It should be noted that about half of this percentage of such cases is precisely the suicide of patients. And if we analyze the natural mortality against the background of anorexia, then this happens for reasons of heart failure, which, in turn, is due to the general exhaustion that the sick person has reached. About 15% are women who, carried away by diets and obsessions of losing weight, come to a state during which they manifest pathological mental phenomena in combination with anorexia. In many cases, anorexia is detected in young girls or adolescents. Following in the footsteps of victims of drug addiction and alcoholism, anorexia patients do not observe the fact of any deviations, just as they do not accept the severity level of this disease. Such a disease tends to manifest itself in a number of variations.
Primary anorexia nervosa
Symptoms will be as follows. In such cases, situations are observed where there is no appetite in children and adults, depending on one reason or another, as well as loss of hunger during hormonal disorders, neurological diseases and malignant tumors.
Anorexia Nervosa
In this case, we have in mind a reduced feeling of hunger or its complete loss, which arose as a result of an assiduous desire to lose weight (most often this kind of desire does not have an appropriate psychological justification) with increased restriction on the amount of food taken. This type of anorexia can cause a number of serious consequences, which include cachexia and metabolic disorders. Thus, during the course of cachexia, patients completely exclude from the attention the fact that they have a frightening and repulsive look, in other cases, patients experience a feeling of great satisfaction when they achieve similar results.
Mental
Psychic anorexia is also distinguished (in other words, neuropsychic or neural cachexia). With this form of the disease, mental anorexia is observed as a state of loss of hunger with a complete refusal of food due to a general decrease in appetite in a number of psychiatric diseases (depressive and catatonic states, delusions in relation to possible poisoning, etc.).
Mentally painful anorexia
The first symptoms are easy to recognize. In this form, people experience a very serious condition of complete loss of hunger during wakefulness. The exclusivity of this form of the condition lies in the fact that there are times when patients encounter severe hunger during sleep.
Medicinal Anorexia
In this form, situations are observed in which patients lose the feeling of hunger and provoke this loss either involuntarily (for example, during the treatment of a disease), or consciously. In the latter state, all the forces are aimed at gaining victory in the form of weight loss, they use the appropriate drugs for this, in which the suppression of hunger occurs. In addition, in this case, anorexia manifests itself as a side effect during the use of various drugs, antidepressants.
The states of mental anorexia and the painful mental anorexia have been sufficiently considered for a general description of these conditions. Most often this applies to its morbid form, which is characterized by the overall clinical picture.
Symptoms of Anorexia
Symptoms of pathology are irritability, sadness, sometimes excessive activity, a condition similar to euphoria is observed. Its signs are manifested in constant social fear, and therefore are confirmed by the inability to share their attitude to food with other people.
Symptoms of anorexia also include physical disorders, such as:
- malfunctions of the menstrual cycle;
- cardiac arrhythmia;
- muscle spasms;
- chronic fatigue;
- algodismenorea.
Most often, it is on the person’s weight that their self-esteem depends, but weight estimation is not always objective. Weight loss is always perceived as a victory, the achievement of goals. And weight gain is characterized by the lack of self-control. A similar situation persists until the last stage of the disease. Self-medication and prescribing medications and hormones to yourself can be dangerous to health. Such cases are no longer treatable.
How are symptoms of anorexia in pregnant women?
Pregnancy Anorexia
For women who have previously experienced anorexia, including bulimia in the form of eating disorders, the desire to become pregnant became an insurmountable difficulty. The reason for this situation is the fact that it is precisely such patients who prefer artificial insemination more often than others, which, of course, has an effect on further reproductive function. Meanwhile, most often, pregnancy occurs with anorexia unplanned, therefore, not all cases of this disease are characterized by infertility. In case of poor nutrition during pregnancy, a miscarriage can occur, there is a risk of developing gestational diabetes - a pathology that comes after childbirth, which is chronic and characterized by high blood glucose.
During pregnancy, healthy women gain about 10-13 kg of weight, which is required to ensure the high-quality development of the baby's body. In many cases, pregnant women can consume about 2000 kcal per day, and in the last trimester - about 2200 kcal.
With anorexia detected, it is very difficult to come to terms with such facts. As a result of a significantly reduced body mass index, a pregnant woman has a risk of having a baby with a small weight, will further aggravate the situation if a woman smokes. Also in such cases, there is a risk of premature birth.
Symptoms and signs of anorexia should be detected in a timely manner.
Diagnostics
Basically, the diagnosis of anorexia is based on a comparison of common symptoms and the following symptoms:
- changes that accompany the condition that occurred before the age of 25 years (including on the basis of gender);
- a decrease in body weight of 25 percent or more from indicators taken as a starting point for diagnosis;
- the absence of any organ diseases that can act as the main cause of weight loss;
- unnatural approaches to eating and to assess your own weight;
- the presence or absence of mental illness that accompanies this disease;
- the presence of lanugo (the appearance of very thin hair on the body);
- amenorrhea;
- bulimia incidents;
- bradycardia (a condition in which the heart rate reaches 60 beats per minute or less);
- vomiting (sometimes specially caused).
As already noted, the causes, symptoms of anorexia and treatment are closely related.
Treatment
In some cases, it is advisable to begin treatment of this disease without reaching the stages of the appearance of serious forms of complications, which will lead to a faster recovery, often even at a spontaneous level.
Nevertheless, in many cases, the disease is not recognized by patients, therefore, no one seeks help. Severe forms imply the need for complex treatment, it can be both inpatient treatment, and drug therapy and psychotherapy (including for all members of the patient's family). Among other things, treatment occurs with a normal diet, during which the calorie intake of food is gradually increased for patients.
During the first treatment phase, improvement occurs when the somatic state is restored, which in turn stops the process of weight loss and eliminates the threat to life, the patient is withdrawn from cachexia.
During the next, second stage, they pay attention to treatment with the use of drugs in combination with the method of psychotherapy with a one-time distraction of the patient from his obsession with weight and appearance. They are working on the emergence of self-confidence in him, recognition of himself and the surrounding reality.
Relapse
Relapse in anorexia is a very common occurrence, so it is necessary to undergo several courses of therapy at once. A fairly rare side effect of treatment is overweight or obesity.
For symptoms of anorexia disease, a systematic approach to diagnosis and treatment is required, and several experts may need to be consulted simultaneously: a neurologist, psychologist, endocrinologist, gastroenterologist, and oncologist.