Can eating disorders affect your teeth and mouth?
Having eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder can have adverse effects on the mouth, their indicators can vary from minor to severe, making it essential to keep visiting the best dental clinic in Karachi as the professionals are often between the first to recognize potential red flags.
There are a lot of studies indicating that eating disorders can have a consequence on oral health. This is the main reason why many reliable dental clinics are supporting Eating Disorders Awareness Week.
What is anorexia?
Individuals with anorexia nervosa restrict their intake of food and drink and have been concerned about putting on weight. Most people with anorexia assign their self-value to their caloric consumption and penalize themselves for consuming too much or having the “wrong types” of foods.
Along with restricting calorie intake, a few people with this condition might try to get rid of the extra calories and weight through exercising, vomiting, or taking laxatives.
What is bulimia?
Do you that bulimia nervosa is a binge eating disorder? To match the standards for a diagnosis of bulimia, it is essential for you to binge/ take an excessive number of calories in one sitting only and purge/ expelling food through extreme exercise, consuming laxatives, or pushing yourself to vomit for a lengthy period of time on daily basis.
Certain binge-purge forms fluctuate between patients, but as many individuals with bulimia are believed to be a healthful weight indicator can usually go unnoticed. Individuals with bulimia might also experience indications like drowsiness, swelling and/or constipation, stomach pain, and unusual menstrual cycles.
What is a binge eating disorder?
Binge consumers have earlier been categorized as food addicts though we now have a much better understanding of the condition. They will usually consume large quantities of food and/or drink without thinking that they are the ones in control of what they are doing, these sprees can be scheduled ahead of time with the patient buying “special” foods to eat, or they could be impulsive.
Such eaters aren’t ‘overindulging’ on foods and drinks or merely only having big portions. These aren’t pleasant practices and frequently cause a lot of stress and humiliation for sufferers.
Traits of a binge eating period involve eating faster than usual, eating until feeling unpleasantly full, consuming huge amounts of food even if you don’t feel like having anything, eating with having no company around due to embarrassment, and moods of disgust, shame after you have finished binging. Nothing like bulimia sufferers, anyone with a binge eating disorder will not wash out after a binge.
How can eating disorders affect the wellbeing of your mouth?
All of the eating disorders mentioned above can affect your health and have harmful effects on a patient’s body and must be treated as a dangerous and serious health condition.
Possible harmful effects of vitamin and nutrient deficiencies might cause the body to close down and not perform tasks properly, affecting and reflecting in the mouth as well. Some common oral signs of eating disorders might include the following:
- Enamel erosion
- Having a dry mouth
- Inflamed salivary glands
- Broken/dry lips
- Mouth sores
- Tooth decay
- Delicate teeth
- Hurting and/or injury to the mouth
How can you keep your teeth and mouth healthy?
Besides taking notice of eating disorders and how to handle them, keeping the teeth plays an important role in maintaining healthy dental health. Everybody loves the feeling they get after visiting the dentist after a long time for teeth cleaning. But the question is, how do you maintain that feeling in between cleanings?
When it comes to taking care of your teeth or mouth, it’s much easier to maintain a healthy mouth than it is to rely on the dentist to correct poor dental hygiene for you; that is not just time-consuming but money-consuming as well. So, here are some tips that can help you keep your teeth clean even without visiting the dentist.
Floss daily
Flossing is always recommended by dentists and experts as it helps you get places you can’t reach with a normal clean toothbrush, leading to healthier teeth and gums. Just like brushing, though, flossing will not be as effective if you’re not doing it the way it should be done. Besides that, inappropriate flossing can even lead to damaged gums if you’re not careful.
Leave sugar behind
Sideways with, cutting back on soda, reducing your sugar intake will also help keep your teeth clean and healthy without paying the dentist a visit too.
Why is it so? This is because sugar encourages bacterial growth and acidity in your mouth, causing plaque to form, and you may not know, but plaque attacks your tooth enamel and gums, leading to tooth decay. Don’t think you don’t have to cut sugar supply from your body at all but limiting the amount you drink along with brushing and flossing after a sweet treat will surely benefit your overall oral health.
Dump Soda
If you have a routine of drinking soda regularly. This habit of yours is certainly putting your teeth in trouble and pain. The ingredients that make the soda fizzy, phosphoric acid, and citric acid can eat away your enamel, making it easy for your teeth to have cavities. However, an occasional soda isn’t going to hurt you, but your aim should be to stick to water.
Use the Appropriate Technique
It actually stops mattering how often you brush your teeth if you’re not doing it the right way. So, next time you brush, take a moment to stop and observe how you are brushing. Are you able to hold the brush at a 45-degree angle? Are you brushing each tooth at least 10 to 15 times?
If the answer to any one of those questions was no. Then be ready to adjust your tooth brushing technique a bit. . You may also feel the need to talk to your dentist. Or dental hygienist about proper brushing and flossing techniques next time you’re in the chair, under the spotlight.
Quit Smoking
You need to understand that smoking is terrible for your teeth. No matter how clean they get when you visit the dentist. Continuing to smoke in between appointments will put all the work to waste.
The reason behind smoking being bad for your teeth is that nicotine and tar are found in cigarettes. And that eat away your gums. Moreover, smoking also increases bacterial production and plaque in the mouth. Increasing the chances of gum disease and tooth decay even more.