Sorry for the long post, but this is also a vent as well as seeking advice...

Now i don't have bulimia...BUT I have had some anxiety and alcohol tolerance problems which has caused me to vomit an average of once every 1-2 months for the past 2 years or so. Usually occurs after a meal, I ate too much by accident and couldn't handle it. Definitely not intentional purging, but rather unintentional and happens every now and then.

I just had my wisdom tooth taken out last week (top left, only 1) and it has caused some swelling on the left side of my face. As I was looking at that, I realized that (in general) my cheeks look overly puffy and my whole face looks 'heavy'. If you didn't see the rest of my body, you'd think I was slightly overweight even though I'm far from that. I happened to be looking back at some pics of me a couple months ago and to my surprise my cheeks appear a little puffy, maybe not as bad as now because of the surgery....but still bigger than I thought. It didn't seem right....so I took a look back at maybe 5-6 months ago and my face looks a lot thinner (what I always envisioned my face to be). I also checked a pic of myself a year ago and my cheeks didn't seem puffy at all. While I didn't have a perfectly straight clean cut jaw, the fat was minimal and hardly noticeable at all.

Now I have gained about 5-6 pounds in the last 6 months as I am trying to gain weight cause I am slightly on the thin side. I am pretty sure it is all muscle, because I am much stronger in all my muscle groups and I appear more defined/muscular. A couple people's first inclination was that "I was gaining weight and 'filling out'" as to the reason why my face appears puffy. While I have gained weight, it is probably 100% muscle gain, as my overall body fat % is even less than 10%. Say even I gained 2 pounds of fat...theres no way that tiny amount of gain would account for the size increase in my cheeks. I went from looking slightly underweight to average to appearing slightly overweight in the face in the last 6 months. In all honesty, it's not 'that bad' I'm not a puffball or anything but I definitely like my old face better...the shape was much more defined and now if you saw my face now u'd think I never missed a meal in my life...

So I went to see the doctor and she found a lymph node on the side where I got my wisdom tooth removed. The left side (side i had the dental surgery on) is more puffy than the other side...so that's part of it. The swelling on that side should heal up within a few weeks hopefully, so at least the 2 sides will be evenly puffy . But in spite of all this, even the pics I took a couple months ago my cheeks appear slightly bloated. What I am trying to say that although the wisdom tooth surgery has temporary contributed to this problem, my cheeks were still puffier than usual even before the surgery.

I think I have a swollen parotid gland (big salival gland just underneath the ear lobe) which is causing this problem. I don't buy the arguments about me "filling out" because I'd probably have to put on 20-30 pounds of FAT to account for this change. I am worried that possibly the vomitting I have been doing (once every month or so for the past 6 months) has done damage to my parotid gland. I read that people with bulimia commonly have puffy cheeks due to the acid in the vomit damaging the salival glands. However, people with bulimia purge about 3x a week on average, compared to my 0.25x a week.

Could vomiting around once per month the past 6 months caused damage to my saliva glands, causing my cheeks to puff? Will they heal in time assuming I don't vomit, giving them time to regenerate? Is it possible that I am comparing my face NOW which is swollen because of the wisdom tooth surgery to my face 6 months ago...and that's why there is a huge discrepency? Any insight, ideas, personal experience or whatever would be of great help!