The 54-year-old Aunt Liu recently found herself "drinking water" more than before, which is obviously a good thing, but it makes Aunt Liu very distressed.
It turns out that Aunt Liu has always felt dry and thirsty recently, often wakes up at night to drink water, goes out and needs to carry a water cup, even when talking, she has to drink water frequently, drinking water has seriously affected The normal life of Aunt Liu, not only does not sleep well, but also talks during the day because of frequent interruptions in drinking water, so Aunt Liu is very distressed.
The daily water intake has increased a lot compared to the past, but after drinking the water, there is no feeling of quenching thirst. So is "drinking water" a good thing or a bad thing? Is dry mouth a lack of water in the body?
First, what is the problem of sudden dry mouth in the middle of the night? Is it because of a lack of water in the body?
Dry mouth is due to a lack of fluids in our body, which signals to us that we need hydration.
There are many reasons for the lack of body fluids in the body: first of all, we breathe and the transpiration of the skin, losing water all the time; our kidneys are also constantly filtering the original urine, forming urine to be excreted.
In addition, when we exercise heavily or are in a high-heat environment, the body sweats heavily, which is also a case of losing water. Of course, these are physiological causes, and there are some obvious pathological causes that can also lead to a lot of dehydration, such as diarrhea, vomiting and so on.
When our body is insufficient, the body's protective mechanism in order to avoid our dehydration, will send a signal to the brain of insufficient body fluid, when the brain receives the signal will send us a signal of thirst, we will feel thirsty, so as to take the initiative to drink water, correct the lack of body fluids in the body.
But if our body has a problem, when our body fluid is sufficient, we mistakenly transmit a signal of insufficient body fluid to the brain, our brain receives a signal that will also cause us to dry mouth, but in fact our body is not in a state of dehydration, the best example of this is cirrhosis of the liver, ascites patients, often a stomach of ascites, painful, but the patient still feels thirsty, this side is the pathological state of dry mouth.
In the process of clinical diagnosis and treatment, dry mouth is one of the more common symptoms, and there are many factors causing symptoms, and the incidence group is more common in elderly women. This requires us to learn to distinguish between dry mouth conditions in daily life and whether they are physiological or pathological.
Generally speaking, we need to consume about 2200 ml of water every day, of which 1000 ml of water can be obtained from our daily diet, and the other 1200 ml should be supplemented from drinking water to meet our daily physiological needs. When we receive the signal, we replenish water in time, which improves the dehydration of the body, and the feeling of thirst will disappear.
However, in a situation like Aunt Liu's, after ensuring sufficient water replenishment every day, it still does not relieve the symptoms of thirst, that is, it may be dry mouth caused by pathological factors. Therefore, the difference between dry mouth and thirst is that the symptoms of dry mouth cannot be alleviated after replenishing water or changing the dehydration environment. Once you find yourself in this situation, you must be vigilant, it may be that some diseases have appeared in the body.
Second, the doctor reminds: dry mouth and tongue may imply certain diseases, do not be careless
In clinical cases, the first symptom of many diseases is dry mouth, but often because people do not care enough about the changes in their bodies, resulting in the disease in the early stage of not getting timely treatment, from small diseases to major diseases. But you don't have to be overly nervous, because dry mouth tends to go along with other symptoms.
Oral diseases: When we have inflammation in the mouth, such as inflammation such as periodontitis, as well as inflammation of glands such as mumps and submandibular adenitis, these oral inflammations will make our oral flora disorders, resulting in a decrease in the amount of saliva secreted by the salivary glands in our mouths, and we will naturally feel dry mouth.
In addition, there is another oral disease that occurs in women around the age of 50, called Sheglen syndrome, because at this time, women have just entered menopause, and the oral lip glands have atrophied, which will lead to a decrease in saliva secretion, which will cause dry mouth.
Sjogren's syndrome: 80% of patients with Sjogren's syndrome have manifestations of dry mouth, severe dry mouth patients carry water cups, frequent drinking water when speaking, difficult to enter solid food need water to send down, wake up in the middle of the night to drink water to quench thirst or wake up from deep sleep.
But there is often another important manifestation of sjogrenia, that is, changes in teeth and changes in eyes. Studies [1] show that about 50% of patients have tooth problems, starting with teeth gradually darkening, forming caries holes, and then the caries holes quickly expand to a state that cannot be repaired, and eventually only the root of the tooth is left, due to the rapid expansion of medically called rampant caries; in addition, patients with schizophrenia may also have unbearable dryness in the eyes, and the eyes will repeatedly have a frosting feeling of sand. [1]HU Yinxiu, LU Yahua, ZHENG Shan-cui.Clinical characteristics of 120 cases of primary Sjögren syndrome[J].Clinical Meta-Collection,2011,26(08):704-706.
Diabetes: Our body's normal blood glucose value in the fasting stomach is 3.9mmol / L-6.1mmol / L, when the blood sugar in our body rises, our human body's regulatory system first through the urine to excrete excess sugar content, at this time the body will urinate a lot in a short period of time, but after the increase in urination will lead to rapid dehydration of the body and the body sent out a signal of lack of water, we will feel dry mouth.
Therefore, diabetes not only has symptoms of dry mouth, but also accompanied by symptoms of polydipsia and polyuria.
Hyperthyroidism: full name hyperthyroidism, due to hyperthyroidism, produced more than normal amount of thyroxine, thyroxine will make the body has been in a state of excitement, it will lead to our body metabolism increased, generally more often in women.
Due to hyperthyroidism, the speed of the body's metabolism is accelerated, resulting in increased sweating and urination, causing insufficient body fluids in the body, coupled with untimely water replenishment, it will cause dry mouth, but hyperthyroidism is often accompanied by irritability, polyphagia, palpitations, weight loss and other symptoms.
Early symptoms of nephropathy: the early cause of nephropathy is mostly glomerular filtration rate or tubular resorption problems, under normal circumstances, the glomerular filtration fluid can reach 170 L for 24 hours, of which more than 99% of the water is reabsorbed by the tubule, if the glomerular function is normal or relatively normal, and the tubular function is impaired, the reabsorption function can lead to polyuria.
If the glomeruli are hyperfunctioning and the filtration rate increases, although the tubule function is normal, the filtration fluid exceeds the tubular workload, which is another cause of polyuria. When the amount of urine excreted in our body is greatly increased, insufficient body fluids in the body will cause dry mouth.
3. Relieve dry mouth and tongue, and remember these few tips
If you want to alleviate dry mouth and tongue, you must learn how to drink water correctly: the first is to drink water frequently, and the body protection mechanism will only send out a thirst signal when our body is in a state of insufficient body fluids, but our body is metabolizing all the time and losing water.
We should replenish water before this signal appears, drink water frequently every day, a small amount of times, slow drinking and slow swallowing, gradually replenishing water, to avoid the body's water loss state, and a small amount of slow drinking will also alleviate the symptoms of our dry mouth more than a large amount of fast drinking.
In addition, it is to supplement sufficient water, above we mentioned that adults should be supplemented with at least 2200ml of water per day, and the water ingested from food is divided into 1000ml, so we should often eat fresh vegetables and fruits in daily life to ensure adequate intake of water.
At the same time, it is also necessary to drink more water in daily life and replenish water in time to make up for the normal metabolism and volatilization of our body and ensure the normal operation of the body.
If sweating, vomiting, diarrhea and other large amounts of water loss occur, you also need to add more water, it is best to drink some light salt water, the osmotic pressure of light salt water is comparable to our human body, not only can accelerate absorption, quickly replenish the water lost by our body, but also can timely supplement the lost sodium ions, to prevent excessive loss of sodium ions, resulting in ion disorders.
Second, pay attention to the time to drink water. Replenishing water in time when our body needs hydration the most can have a multiplier effect with half the effort. You can drink a small amount of warm water before going to bed, because at night we will be in a state of dehydration for a long time but cannot be replenished, so we add water in advance to improve the state of dehydration, but we should not drink too much, too much will cause night up at night, affecting sleep.
It is best to drink a cup of warm water after waking up in the morning, which can not only improve our physiological dehydration state of not entering the water overnight, but also dilute the gastric juice accumulated overnight, which can improve the situation of early gastric acid reflux.
In the same way, we should not drink water immediately after meals, it will dilute gastric juice, which is easy to lead to indigestion, so it is advisable to drink water half an hour after meals; when bathing, the temperature of the bath water will make our heartbeat faster, the blood vessels are dilated, the pores are open, and all kinds of situations will cause us to accelerate the loss of water.
In the case of constipation, it is also necessary to drink more water, water can promote intestinal peristalsis, soften feces, accelerate metabolism, and promote defecation. Finally, after half an hour in the air-conditioned room in the summer, you can drink a glass of water, due to the summer heat, the human body sweating increases, into the air-conditioned room, the room itself is dry, the water loss situation is aggravated, so in the air-conditioned room, it is very important to pay attention to water replenishment.
Not only that, we can also eat some raw and thirst-quenching foods, such as bayberry, hawthorn, sour dates and other sour fruits, this is because our saliva secretion is directed by the brain, and acidic food stimulates the salivary glands the strongest, so the brain will send a strong signal, so that the saliva glands secrete more saliva, saliva secretion increases, it will alleviate the symptoms of dry mouth.
If you do not love to eat sour food, you can also eat more pears, we all know that pears have more moisture, eating more can not only replenish water, but also pears have the effect of clearing heat and detoxification, going to the fire and fighting fire, which has a good improvement effect on dry mouth.
Write at the end
Dry mouth is something that many people have felt, but often dry mouth do not blindly think that the body is dehydrated, it is likely to be a dry mouth and dry tongue caused by pathological factors, such as common diabetes, hyperthyroidism and so on.