If You Dream About Donuts, This May Be Why.
I had a dream about donuts last night. I was trying to decide which donut I wanted. I was surrounded by a variety of beautiful donuts. I could smell them in my dream. I woke up really happy, which is unusual. I am not a morning person.
Have you ever been consumed with thoughts of food? Do you think about what you are going to eat and plan it out to excess? When I go on vacation, it’s always about all the things I’m going to eat once I’m there. I have a lot of food related destinations. Phoenix is for Lux coffee with their amazing pastries and cappuccino. Right next door is Pane Bianca with their stone oven baked bread with mozzarella, basil, tomato sandwiches. Hillstone is for straw fries with the chipotle mayo on the side and their cosmopolitan. I even got the bartender to give me his recipe once. I could keep going on about food destinations, but let’s chat about this later.
Once, I ate a whole quart of Neapolitan ice cream. I’ve also eaten an entire loaf of bread with peanut butter and jelly. All in one sitting and in secret. Sometimes, I’ll be eating from a giant Costco size bag of Lay’s potato chips and be thinking to myself, wow, I’m not even hungry, but I can’t seem to stop. I was 18 years old when I went through a bad spell of binge eating resulting in weight gain of about 30 lbs in 2 months. My family did not seem to notice at the time. At least they said nothing. I was scared but did not have anyone to talk to about it. It just worked itself out to a degree, thankfully.
Can any of you relate?
This behavior describes Binge Eating Disorder (BED), which is the most common type of eating disorder. It affects women more than men but also affects teens. It often goes undiagnosed, as it did for me. I diagnose BED every week in my practice. My patients recognize there is a problem, but are embarrassed to admit it or bring it up. They often don’t know there is anything to do for it.
Binge Eating Disorder is defined as recurring episodes of eating significantly more food in a short period of time than most people eat under similar circumstances and marked by feelings of lack of control. People often hide their behavior, eating in secret and experience embarrassment and disgust. These overeating episodes must occur once a week for 3 months to qualify as BED.
People with BED may be of normal weight, overweight or obese. Many of us overeat from time to time, but in BED the overeating is severe and happens over and over.
Willpower is often not enough for treating BED. A medication that can help is Vyvanse. Vyvanse is also used for ADHD treatment. Stimulant medications like Vyvanse have a high potential for abuse and dependence. You must not take Vyvanse if you have any type of heart disease due to risk of making it worse. Vyvanse is not indicated as a weight loss treatment, although it helps with weight loss. You must not take it if you are pregnant or breast feeding. Common side effects are insomnia, dry mouth and reduced appetite.
Please contact me if you are concerned and would like to be evaluated and treated for Binge Eating Disorder.
Click here to take the test to see if you have Binge Eating Disorder:
https://assets.takeda.com/content/dam/takeda/imported/nonproduct/pdfs/pro-binge-eating-screener.pdf
Manufacturer website for Vyvanse:
https://www.vyvansepro.com/binge-eating-disorder