Addicted to Eating Soap & Detergent Powder!

The 19-year-old girl Tempestt Henderson Addicted To Eating Soap And Washing Powder with a dangerous compulsion. Doctors say

it could kill her because of it’s toxic compulsion. But this 19-year-old girl claims she is hopelessly addicted to eating soap and washing powder. A rare medical condition has left Tempestt Henderson, from Florida, eating up to five bars of soap a week – and washing powder too.

‘I remember the first time I dipped my fingers into the washing powder. I dabbed the powder onto my tongue and it tasted so sweet, and salty…it just felt so right. I was hooked straight away,’ she said.

The nursing student says she knew eating soap was dangerous, but ignored the warning labels on the box in favour of licking the deadly powder daily, from the minute she woke up in the morning. Soon she had moved onto licking the bubbles of soap in the shower, too, a habit that was getting her through up to five bars of soap a week.

‘In the shower, I like to lather up a green bar of soap, and lick the bubbles. And as the soap disintegrates, I pop a tiny amount of the soap into my mouth and suck it. It’s heavenly. I love the clean feeling it gives me. Eating soap feels so much cleaner than just washing with it,’ said Tempestt.

After six months of eating soap, unhappy Tempestt decided to be brave and seek medical advice. She was diagnosed with a rare disorder called PICA, which doctors told her is characterised by an appetite for substances that are largely non-nutritive. In Tempestt’s case doctors believed the condition was bought on by stress.

Tempestt said, ‘I used to love smelling the powder, but when life got so stressful I found only eating the soap would help. It is an addiction, I can’t stop, and I have sought the help of a doctor who specializes in addiction. The doctor told me I must empty my house of all washing detergent and soap, anything that triggers my addiction.'

The doctor gave Tempestt intensive Cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT, to give her replacement thoughts that will prevent her from compulsively reaching for soap.

‘I’m learning to think about positive things when I feel I need to eat soap,’ she said.

She has also been encouraged to go for long walks, avoiding places where soap is present, like bathrooms and laundrettes.

She added: ‘Doctors have encouraged me to talk about my issues, because they think my addiction is caused by me bottling things up.’

And for the teenager who used to take not one, not two, but three bottles of soap into the shower, she hasn’t eaten soap since September 2010. Today, she faces a long road of recovery, but says she hopes she’ll never have to eat soap ever again.