Anorexia Nervosa Treatment
Anorexia Nervosa is a mental health condition that causes individuals to become extremely underweight, while relentlessly pursuing thinness or refusing to maintain a healthy weight and considering themselves to be overweight. It causes a variety of medical consequences, sometimes life-threatening.
Individuals struggling with Anorexia also have disturbed thoughts and behaviors about eating and may manipulate their weight through self-starvation, self-induced vomiting, laxative or diuretic abuse, or excessive-exercise. Another problematic aspect of this condition is that often sufferers don’t acknowledge they are underweight and may be resistant to getting help, for they don’t see their condition as a problem at all.
Anorexia is considered a “severe” mental health diagnosis under California law, which means it must be covered by insurance companies to the same degree as any other medical condition. As Anorexia Nervosa holds the highest mortality rate of all psychiatric conditions, this designation is entirely appropriate. Many people will recover from anorexia with treatment. However, some will experience periodic relapse and others will chronically struggle to battle the medical complications associated with this condition.
Experience shows that the earlier this problem can be identified and appropriately treated, the better the outcomes are.
The Cielo House Approach to Anorexia:
While low weight and malnutrition are two major hurdles in recovering from Anorexia, we acknowledge that there are a whole host of other compounding factors that require attention. We believe Anorexia is more than a food-based illness, and as such we do not focus exclusively on food and weight. In fact, in many instances we will spend much more of our focus on the other facets of eating disorders. As with everything we do, we maintain a collaborative stance with our clients about food and weight, and we realize that weight is not the only indicator of health for our clients.
We diligently treat both the nutritional and emotional deprivation associated with Anorexia and work with clients to maintain a lasting recovery.