Bulimia nervosa is a psychological disease that predominantly affects young women and shows a disturbed relationship with food intake. Affected people suffer from binge eating followed by vomiting. Instead of vomiting after binge eating, some patients might also misuse laxatives, do excessive exercise, or fast.
Patients with bulimia suffer from binge eating, when they “can’t stop eating until everything is gone”, followed by feelings of guilt. Being afraid of weight gain, they will initially induce vomiting using their fingers; later on the vomiting will be reflective. Patients often have a pathological fear of gaining weight. People with bulimia often maintain a normal or slightly reduced weight above a body mass index value of 17.5. Body mass index (BMI) can be calculated by dividing body weight (kg) by body height squared. A normal weight is 20-25. In contrast to bulimia, people with anorexia (see the article on anorexia) have a BMI value under 17.5.
Even though patients suffering from bulimia nervosa are often of normal weight, unlike those suffering from anorexia nervosa, they still show strong symptoms of malnutrition. Frequent vomiting leads to bad teeth, with tooth decay and other defects, and they also suffer from stomach complaints and heartburn. Malnutrition leads to problems with the bone metabolism and to reduced performance capacity.
Even if the affected person is not extremely underweight compared to anorexia nervosa, life-threatening disruptions, especially of blood salts can occur and need to be treated immediately. The long-term treatment should aim at building an almost normal relationship with food, body weight and body perception, by applying psychotherapy and other supporting therapies (e.g. ergo therapy). Treatment will be handled by a specialist.
Several years of work in academia, medical practice and finally commercialization make it possible to provide an end-to-end process to help users to “find the appropriate medical help based on their present symptoms”. Below you will find a short explanation, showing you which part of the platform will help you best in finding the appropriate medical support.
Proceed as follows to enter your current symptoms.
Click on the appropriate body part on the picture. Select one/multiple symptoms corresponding to your complaint.
You can also add symptoms by typing your medical complaint in the search box and selecting the best matching suggestion.
Note: Your information will be kept anonymously.
Once you have selected all applicable symptoms, click the “analyze disease pattern”-button.
Accordingly, you will get a list of possible diseases and matching doctor categories who can further help you.
You can inform yourself about the possible diseases by reading the related information. But you can also return to the previous step and add more symptoms or delete already added ones to further narrow down your disease pattern.
Click on the desired doctor category to find a doctor who can help you.
If you are logged in with your profile, you will be displayed the appropriate doctors in your area. Otherwise you can enter an address in the “address” field and you will be displayed a doctor’s list around that specified address.
You will receive further information about the displayed doctors when you press on “details”.
Online bookable doctors in your area will be indicated with the notation “Book appointment” or “Book externally”, additionally they will be displayed on top of the list for your convenience.
Click on “Book appointment” to start the online appointment booking process with the desired doctor.
Please select an available appointment. “Green“ appointments are booked directly. “Red“ appointments need to be confirmed by the doctor.
Enter your general personal and health information.
Enter your present medical symptoms.
Enter your mobile phone number to identify yourself and you can finalize the appointment booking.
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