Bleeding gums are a sign of either brushing too hard, the need for a toothbrush with softer bristles, sensitive gums or gum disease. They are a coincidence rather than an effect of not eating much for one day.

Zed,

I’m afraid Amazon is not mistaken! If you google the causes of bleeding gums it is not fasting, it is gum disease.

Concerns re: Ramadan and fasting appear to relate to whether swallowing blood (from bleeding gums) breaks the fast and not to whether fasting causes gum disease (and bleeding).

The only way you’ll know whether there is a correlation between fasting and bleeding gums (for you) is by continuing to fast and by recording bleeding/ not bleeding.

You don’t say whether you are male or female, or how old, but if you are female then you should be aware that hormonal changes can result in bleeding gums.

I suspect the gums are completely unrelated to fasting; you’re seeing cause and effect where there is none.

Actually some more thoughts since I did have and bleeding gums some years ago.

1) When gums are bleeding it normally is something that only shows up as pink on the toothbrush or some blood on floss. I even had one spot that required surgery to stop the regression and I never reached a point where I would see blood in the sink.

2) Gum bleeding isn’t something that changes in a day. It slowly develops and it is probably even slower to heal. In my case it took months and even years before my gums looked really healthy to a dentist. In my case I’ve been told by hygienist checking recessions that many of mine are gone or have improved which doesn’t happen too often.

3) I have had bleeding in my throat from a allergy issue multiple times. In that case I often do end up seeing blood in the sink and that often does heal quickly. If you look in the mouth it isn’t possible to tell where the blood is coming from and only know it was my throat because a doctor was able to see it. I’m not saying that is what occurred, it just it isn’t easy to always tell where blood in the mouth is coming from.

However if fasting is causing your gums to bleed, then I would have to say that isn’t normal and you probably have something more going on. The single 36 hour fasts aren’t even that hard of fasts once you can easily sleep though the second night. At least for me when I extend the fast to 60 hours, that second full day is much harder and that is when many of the real impacts from fasting get started. However going past 60 hours gets easy, at least for me. I’m talking about no calorie fasting, I don’t have experience with multiday partial fasts were some food is allowed.

There are such wide variations in people that it possible you have some side effect that very people run into. However you need more than one data point to be able to claim that.

3rd or 4th day into a fast … that isn’t 5:2 fasting then. I think that could be a different issue as a lot of physical changes happen by the 3rd day of a water fast. Probably you should check with a dentist but it seems likely there wouldn’t be much of a problem.