The ‘satisficing’ additive composite approach to bulimia

Abstract

Bulimia (‘ox hunger’) is a serious, potentially dangerous, eating disorder that is often associated with anxiety about weight and body shape. People with bulimia ‘binge’, meaning that they eat large amounts of food, and then vomit afterwards to ‘purge themselves’ in order to get rid of those recently ingested calories. Frequent vomiting of the stomach hydrochloric acid and other ingested acids (pH 1–2) produces variable, but often catastrophic, erosion of the palatal aspects of the upper teeth in particular. ‘Satisficing’ is a word made from combining ‘sufficient’ and ‘satisfactory’. It means seeking an outcome that meets the essential requirements for it to be ‘sufficient to be satisfactory for that situation’. These authors recommend pragmatic early additive direct resin composite bonding as being a ‘satisficing’ approach to help manage tooth surface loss in bulimic patients, and the article provides clinical examples of some dental problems caused by bulimia being solved in that way. CPD/Clinical Relevance: This article addresses a number of controversial issues in the dental management of patients with bulimia nervosa (‘bulimia’).