hey tyra im 14 i have pica and i love to eat baby powder i really need help my mom doesnt buy me baby powder any more because every time she buys it its gone by the next two days from me eating it i am going crazy right now i need i need help bad i want to stop eating baby powder but i just cant stop ive been eating baby powder every since i was 6 and the sad thing is when my mom is out of the room i would sneek in her room and eat bsome of her baby powder or if i have my own i would wake up like at 3:00 in the morning and eat powder my cravings ae gtting bad that i would rather eat baby powder than real food i need help

I have seen that there are many ladies with these cravings. I have been eating clay for the last 25yrs, i started when i was only 7 yrs. The habit has been on and on, I have taken iron, vitamin tablets and food rich in iron but my problem persist. At a time I felt demoralised as I watched kids being punished for the same bad habit. The act of just thinking of it makes my mouth water, i have research and will appreciate any assistance offered to me. Thanks C

Hey Tyra, i have a very bad habit and decided to look it up tonite. the bad part is that my husband knows and he is the only one...until now. I explain to him how i feel and really want to stop because it is really taking over my life. I eat baby powder starting since I had my last son who will be 8 this year. I am anemic but refuse to take my iron pills. i never knew that this would probably help me out. I have to get rid of this habit. i asked my husband to go with me to the doctors because I am to ashamed to tell her. I am shamed because i work with my doc. i should no better but it is really a hard habit to get rid of....A BIG DISEASE. I hate it but crave all the time I try stopping for a few days and start back up again. I actually was afraid for my kids to find out and had a big habit of correcting my son when he put things in his mouth. I do not wish this on noone....This is badddddd

I have been eating paper for years but I did not know about the adverse affects until now. I plan to see my family doctor and get some advice on dealing with what I thought to be a simple craving but in actuality is a serious disorder. Thanks for all your comments and facts.

okay so ive been eating powder since i can remeber i go threw powder every week and a half. i love the texture and recently i realized i have the disorder pica.

But see a doctor it could be something else more than you simply needing vitamins. Vitamins worked for me,i developed pica when i turned 13 when i started menustrating. But something else could be causing your pica, like bleeding internally or consumption issues...

But if your pica is still present, stop eating chalk. You can get that gritty substance that you crave from food items. I used to get non salted Walmart brand crackers, chop it up in a blender, it can get just as fine as baby powder or even chalk powder, dust, or dirt. And it tastes great. The thing is, it is crackers that you will be eating, not chalk. Don't forget your multivitamins. Too many crackers can be bad too. I used to eat about a box a day. I weigh about 245 pounds,. Since i have been taking one- a- day vitamins for about a month, i now weigh 235. I don't eat crackers anymore.

Denise, i was once a pica victim, the problem with pica is that it feels soo good to eat that non food item. It is bliss to eat it all day long. SO we don't really want to quit. Once you realize that there is joy in eating a variety of regular foods, like you are supposed to, you can try to be cured. And realize that pica hurts you mentally and physically. There is a cure. Pica is your body craving a mineral or vitamin (mostly iron and or folic acid)that it is not getting. Somehow your brain interprets the object of intense craving as a dirty gritty substance. And we will eat that substance which tells our body that "yes, finally we got what we need" but because that object does not have the vitamin or mineral in it, we crave it more and more and we get less and less of what we need. Hence pica disease. So it was simple, the cure is taking a multi vitamin everyday. After a couple of days the craving will become minimal to none.

PART ONE CONTINUED... more satisfying than my own at home, with its bitter chemical edge and chunkiness that would scratch my throat.... Whenever my throat would hurt from swallowing the chalk, I would just wash it down and lather it with some milk.In my second year of middle school I told my mom about what sly, sneaky, ushamed action I was taking behind her back, and had to have all traces of chalk disposed of from my room. At the time being an absolute 10 on my chalk addiction scale. In a couple of weeks I was craving my forbidden treats like crazy, cheating on my no non-food diet whenever I could get my hands on some chalk, but soon after getting it, spitting it out, thinking of how sick I could really be....Why would I get a strange nudging sensation in my abdomen as if something were trying to bust free from my body? Worried and frightened I totally cut non-food items out of my diet. It's been a little over 2 years and I still get those damn cravings; my mouth even waters. Besides the time I told my mom that once, I'm still embarrissed about what I have done and fear that this will become an even bigger issue for me to overcome. I hope that when I plan to conceive a child later on in life, I will not have to be haunted by this crap, joke of a disoder to have. I haven't gotten checked out about this, but will plan on it. I don't want my health in jepordy.God bless all of you out there who share the same problem as me. I hope you are able to overcome it, and thank you for reading my story.

In elementary school I would eat sand, dirt, make-up like foundation; and lip-stick, plaster, dust, paper, and chalk-- which would later become my problem.I remember reaching over to the chalkboard, snapping off a piece of chalk and eating it when I was in 1st grade. I would do this with sand on the playground, and even with some dried up mud from the bottom of my shoe. On a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the side for greater non-food consumption, I'd rank myself between a 6 and 7.In middle/late elementary school, I realized that not everyone like eating or seeing people eat these non-food items, so I became self-conscious about it. Sometimes I would convince a friend to dare me into eating some dirt from the ground. After stopping for quite sometime I then dropped all other non-foods and began to just eat chalk in the privacy of my room from a samll art kit I had recently gotten-- on the scale, a 6.When I first got into middle school, my chalk eating became out-of-hand. I would eat chalk daily, and whenever I would see pictures of the Sahara desert with all its sand my taste-buds would tingle and I would imagine myself taking a chomp out of it, imagining the grainy texture in my mouth... I would also have this urge, this craving whenever I was around someplace dusty (now that I know what's in it I find that completely disgusting), sandy, or walking a a road with a lot of dirt. I would also find myself impateint for going to my yonger cousin's house so I could take one of his Crayola sidewalk chalk sticks and biting off a samll chunk and grinding it into a fine, powder-like material within my mouth. I found his chalk

I've struggled for years with eating disorders, and as a child, I suffered with pica. I don't think it was due to typical reasons, though; I ate different non-food items to have something to chew that wouldn't give me energy, since my eating disorder started as a response to attempting to "placate" my non-diagnosed (at the time) ADD/ADHD.

Hello I am having the same problem, but I didn't know how to explain it. I like eating baby powder, but I stopped becaused it use to make my heart skips beat, but now I am sniffing comet, and I am sniffing soap powder. I sniff comet at least three times a day. I also found myself playing in the dirt almost eating it. I think about eating dirt all day long. HELP!

me and my brother have it too i love rubber and sponge i always knew it was strange to eat these sort of things but today i realised through researchin on the net its an eating disorder. its weird to think i have an eating disorder i am goin to the docs to check it out cos i read some where that things that arent solouble can remain in u blood and cause all sorts of nasty problems, please people get help!! these things arent edible for a reason Cxx

i knew there was something wrong with me when as far back as i can remember i can remember eating and craving dirt. Throughout school i always ate dirt, chalk, ice, clay from pottery class, plaster from walls, and recently even baby powder. I told me girlfriend i had Pica after doing research but she did not believe it was an eating disorder. I dont have insurence to go to the doctor, and i am now 19 years old and still crave dirt and "dirty/powdery/sandy" , or textures. When i see gravel, sand, or dirt on the side of the road i crave the smell, taste, and texture. Any suggestions on what to do to help? I am not sure if i could be anemic, because i dont have major symptoms. Although i am weak alot, have ringing in my ears occasionally, and i do get dizzy when i stand up. Help?

I also have the disorder, nly my weakness is soap. I want to eat it. And not just any soap. I looove Irish Spring and Ivory, the super cheap ones. i go crazy if I run out. I like to shred it with a cheese grater then i wrap it in tissue and just sniff it. I feel like a crack head but it's my little secret. Just recently I gave into temptation and now literally enjoy washing my mouth out with soap..