Eating disorders are of two types such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. These eating disorders badly affect your body health as you can get many diseases and other health-related problems. People involve themselves with an eating disorder when they are not comfortable with their body type. Some people want to change their bodies and become slimmer than before, while others just don’t have control over eating. Eating disorders not only affect your physical health but also affect your oral health. People get multiple mouth problems that have a severe effect on their health. However, you must know about these eating disorders briefly before knowing about oral problems.
What is Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa?
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder in which a person gets conscious about his or her body and chooses not to eat at all. They get into a severe complex that they need to cut off eating excessive food and choose to punish themselves by not eating at all. Besides no intake of food, they also burn calories through various ways like exercising, taking laxatives, enemas, and vomiting.
On the other hand, bulimia nervosa is also an eating disorder that is opposite to anorexia nervosa. In this disorder, a person eats excessive food without any control and just eats like a bull. It is a binge eating disorder in which many people involve themselves as they have no control over food. They will keep eating as they have never eaten food before. However, after eating too much, they regret eating too much and opt for purging. They try to take out all of the food they ate before by taking laxatives, using enemas, doing exercise, and vomiting by inserting a finger.
Binge Eating:
People with binge eating are often similar to bulimia nervosa. However, the only difference is that they don’t purge after eating. They just eat faster than normal eating and keep binge eating even after being full. Even if they don’t feel hungry, they will just eat food uncontrollably.
Oral Problems with Eating Disorder
These eating disorders badly affect your physical condition and people suffer from many diseases. However, not just physical health, but people also suffer from multiple oral problems such as mouth sores, bruising to the mouth, injury in the mouth, dry mouth, enamel erosion, cracked/dry lips, sensitive teeth, tooth decay, and enlarged salivary glands. People who purge through vomiting get excessive tooth enamel erosion because of excessive stomach acid contact.
Solutions to Detect Eating Disorders by Dental Team
Various dental hygienists, dentists, dental nurses, and therapists can help to recognise your oral problems instantly due to eating disorders. Such problems can be solved if you follow your dentist’s instructions. They check the hard and soft tissues of the mouth to detect any mouth injury due to vomit. Moreover, they will talk calmly to the eating disorder patients and will suggest to them different kinds of toothpaste that will make their teeth better-looking. You just need to be honest with your dental team and they might help you take out your oral problems due to an eating disorder.