How Do Eating Disorders Affect Your Mouth?
Eating issues like anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating adversely affect your mouth. The symptoms of these disorders can range from mild to severe, and dentists are often at the forefront of identifying the warning signs of this condition.
Research shows that eating disorders can affect oral health, making the oral health foundation support eating disorders awareness week. This composition looks at the main symptoms of this condition and how they impact your mouth health, and how the Emerson dental clinic can help you. Kindly read for more details.
Anorexia Explained
People affected by anorexia nervosa limit food and beverage intake for fear of gaining weight. The people affected by anorexia think their self-worth is related to their caloric intake and punish themselves for eating foods they shouldn’t have or merely overeating. Besides limiting calorie intake, people with anorexia might try to get rid of extra calories and weight by using techniques like exercise, vomiting, laxatives, and using enemas.
What Is Bulimia?
Bulimia nervosa, alternately called a binge eating disorder, is diagnosed in binge eating patients. The criteria needed to satisfy bulimia diagnosis requires patients to have excessive calories in one sitting and frequently purge the food through exercise, medicines, and vomiting over an extended period.
The specific binge-purge pattern among patients affected by bulimia varies. However, many bulimia patients are considered healthy, and the signs often remain unnoticed. Bulimia can make patients experience symptoms like fatigue, constipation, abdominal pain, and disturbed menstrual cycles.
Explaining Binge Eating Disorders
Binge eating disorders were earlier classified as addiction to food, although the understanding of the condition has expanded presently. Patients affected by binge eating often consume excessive quantities of foods and beverages without control of their actions. For example, binge eating might be a preplanned session with a specific individual who purchases special foods to binge on, or an eating pattern might be spontaneous.
Binge eaters do not overindulge in foods or merely have large portions because they are not enjoyable and cause distress and embarrassment to the patient. The specific characteristics of binge eating include eating speedily until they feel uncomfortably full or overeating even when not hungry or eating alone because they are embarrassed at the quantity of food they have and have feelings of disgust, shame, and guilt after their binge. However, unlike patients with bulimia, binge eating disorder patients will not purge.
The Effects of Eating Ailments on Your Mouth
You might think your teeth and mouth are created for eating and are doing just that whether you have minimal or excessive foods. However, eating disorders affect your health and adversely affect the body, requiring consideration as a severe health issue.
Some potential adverse effects of vitamin and nutrient deficiencies can result in the body shutting down and malfunctioning, making the issue visible in the mouth. Some oral health effects that identify eating disorders include enamel erosion, xerostomia, enlarged salivary glands, cracked and dry lips, mouth sores, tooth decay, sensitive teeth, and brushing injuries to the mouth. The signs are comfortably identified by the dentist in Westwood, NJ, if you visit them for your six-monthly oral prophylaxis, they examine your teeth and mouth comprehensively.
How Do Dentists Help Detect Eating Disorders?
Dentists, hygienists, therapists, and nurses are all in an excellent position to recognize the early symptoms of eating disorders. For example, during your routine exam, the dentist in Emerson, NJ, examines your mouth’s hard and soft tissues, looking for signs of enamel erosion and injuries resulting from objects forced into the mouth to throw up.
Besides erosion due to acid reflux, dentists can also detect tooth decay from excessive sugar intake and indicators of nutrient deficiencies.
When dentists suspect patients are suffering from an eating disorder, they will sit down and discuss the issue with the affected individual. They might consult prescribing a high fluoride toothpaste and varnish to prevent tooth decay from affecting patients.
Patients receive all help they need from the dentist if they remain open with the professionals and for once purge about the problem they are affected by to receive support from dentists to overcome this severe disorder. Therefore anyone affected by eating disorders must be willing to discuss the issue with their dentist to receive a remedy best suited for their condition.
Emerson Family Dental receive many patients with signs and symptoms of eating disorders who are reluctant to discuss their problems. However, the dentists notice the symptoms and speak about the crisis affecting the patients calmly to convince them to treat the disorder before it aggravates. If you think you might have an eating disorder discuss your problem with this practice to receive the help, you need sooner instead of later.