How much damage does 3 months of bulimia cause?

Answer 1

It depends on how you binge and purge. If you're talking about the usual 'throwing up' method via manually inducing vomiting after binging on food, then that's going to send stomach acid up through your throat and through your mouth over and over. That will damage your teeth permanently and maybe even cause them to fall out over time due to gum disease. If you're a smart bulimic, you would drink water slowly (or, even better, a dilute solution of baking soda) right after throwing up and rinse your mouth thoroughly (for 15 minutes) to prevent damage from the stomach acid to the cells lining your throat, esophagus (that pipe leading into your stomach), and mouth. However, even if you did that, repeated vomiting and neutralization of the acid that comes up is not completely effective - just like spilling acid on yourself and then even neutralizing it immediately still does not insure that you do not get hurt.

Be careful. If you induce vomiting chemically as with certain syrups, that can lead to death due to a buildup of the chemicals in your body. Will it happen within three months? It could.

Otherwise, if you were to be bulimic for three months, several things can happen:

1. If you do not drink water and replenish your electrolytes (especially potassium; these are not necessarily found in regular water) after each purge, you will also likely become chronically dehydrated. This leads to deterioration in organ function including your kidneys, liver, pancreas, brain, etc. and can lead to organ failure usually starting with kidneys. Eventually you'll either die or get very sick (it will be very painful) depending, amongst other things, on how bad you are at rehydrating yourself and keeping your electrolyte levels up. However, organ failure is near the end of the road - there is plenty of damage done to your body on the way to the point of organ failure, some of which your body may not be able to repair. The extent of the damage from dehydration alone in 3 months depends on how badly dehydrated you would be during that time.

2. Malnourishment is something that comes with bulimia - not in the sense that you will be losing weight, but in the sense that you will likely be eating unhealthy food and then only vomiting some of it out. Deficiencies in essential fats and protein come to mind - these lead to various cascade effects in the body on the regulation of your hormones and maintenance/healing of your body's cells (including brain cells). After three months (or before), with bad nutrition, you may become mentally unstable, cognitively impaired, and physically weak. As mentioned before, while the body is good at repairing itself, certain things can take a very long time to get fixed or may not be fixable. For example, you might regrow your hair (some or quite a bit may fall out during the three months) but you will not be able to build as much bone density as you need during your youth to prevent bone fractures and osteoporosis later on in life.

3. You could tear your esophagus or stomach lining with frequent vomiting. This may happen at any time during the three months with persistent bulimics. If you keep stressing your gag reflex the tissue of your stomach and esophagus gets thin from exposure to acid and gets torn by the physical strain of vomiting over and over again. This damage can often be deadly.

4. If you do make it through the three months of truly being bulimic, you will probably end up looking much worse than you did when you started. First of all, you would not have lost much weight - actually you will likely end up gaining weight from the food you do ingest. Second of all, your skin on your face will probably look worse due to the strain of vomiting and nutrient deficiencies. If you're a woman, your menstrual cycle may get very unstable for a while since your hormone levels will be irregular. This may affect your fertility permanently.

In summary, being bulimic for three months can still be pretty bad for you. Just how bad depends on how well you counteract the acid reflux, how often you choose to vomit, how well you replenish your fluids and electrolytes, and how well you are able to get important nutrients into your body. Sounds pretty challenging, doesn't it? And on top of that, most likely you will gain weight rather than lose it. It's much easier, safer, and better in the long term to save on medical bills and get a personal trainer or professional medical help to help you lose weight in a healthy manner.

Answer 2

You might be suprised. Constant vomiting can cause erosion of your esophogas. That is the tube that leads to your stomach.

This can cause ulcers, internal bleeding and even an esophigal rupture. Esophigal ruptures mean you can bleed to death. Not good. You will find that the enamil on your teeth will be fading away and that your knuckles will turn darker. You will suffer stomachaches and headaches along with sever dizziness. Basically, all it is is a disaster waiting to happen.