The air is getting drier and drier, and people will easily feel dry mouth.
What if the mouth is dry? "Drink more water" definitely works!
However, if no matter how you drink water or feel dry mouth, even drinking a lot of water for a long time can not alleviate it?
(Source: soogif)
Watch out! This could be an important signal that the body is releasing certain diseases!
Dry mouth, to put it bluntly, is that the mouth is thirsty, but the performance of dry mouth is actually related to the degree of tolerance of people.
It is not difficult to observe the people around them and find that some people can not drink water for several hours in a row, while some people need to drink water non-stop, and they are too thirsty to drink water for a while.
Our salivary secretion regulation is mainly based on nerve reflexes, while the efferent nerves that innervate the salivary glands are mainly sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves. In both cases of neural excitation, saliva secretes more.
Therefore, we can see that many elderly people obviously do not have much saliva and do not feel uncomfortable, because they have adapted to this neural reflex. On the contrary, children tend to salivate because they are not yet tolerant.
Looking at the salivary glands, our salivary glands are mainly composed of the parotid glands, the submandibular glands and the sublingual glands, which are several parts.
The amount of saliva that the salivary glands generally secrete is 1000 to 1500 ml per day. The composition of the salivary glands is relatively fixed, and if the composition changes or the amount of saliva secreted decreases, symptoms of dry mouth occur [1].
Feeling that dry mouth may be a normal physiological phenomenon, usually pay attention to drink more water, basically no problem [2]. Like what:
Usually drink less water, the taste is heavy, you left work, and three or five friends made an appointment with a spicy and spicy Sichuan hot pot;
Parents are older, with the degradation of physical function, salivary glands atrophy, saliva secretion becomes less, dry mouth;
After a long period of strenuous exercise, dry mouth appears without timely hydration.
There are also some dry mouth is caused by certain diseases or special conditions of the body, most of this situation, as long as the right medicine, the disease is cured or alleviated, the dry mouth basically disappears, such as:
When you have fever or diarrhea, the body's water will also be lost, and dry mouth may occur;
Trauma leads to narrowing of the lumen of the lumen secreting saliva or destruction of glandular tissue, resulting in a decrease in saliva secretion;
After a cold, because of the upper respiratory tract infection, there will also be symptoms of dry mouth, but this symptom will disappear with the recovery of the cold;
Long-term use of some drugs, such as some antidepressants amitriptyline, propmizine, etc., antihypertensive drugs clonidine, piperazosin, etc., will also appear symptoms of dry mouth [3];
Oral disorders, most commonly mumps or stones in the oral glands, may also precipitate symptoms of dry mouth.
If dry mouth is not related to all these clues mentioned earlier, then it is necessary to pay attention, it may be a sign of the following diseases!
1. Diabetes
This is the one that needs the most attention.
When blood glucose rises, plasma osmolality also increases, and osmotic urination occurs, resulting in dehydration of the body. The thirst center of the brain is thus stimulated, and dry mouth naturally appears.
Therefore, if you find that you have frequent thirst, and the amount of urination increases for no reason, the weight is also lost for no reason, and the fatigue that cannot be relieved is accompanied, you must check to rule out the possibility of diabetes [4].
Especially people with a family history of diabetes, they should be more vigilant.
2. Diseases of the blood system
Iron deficiency anemia, pernicious anemia, or vitamin B deficiency may cause atrophic glossitis.
At this time, symptoms such as atrophy of the tongue and nipples and decreased saliva production will occur [5].
3. Mental and psychological illness
Some people with depression and anxiety disorders, because of long-term medication or psychological factors, lead to conscious dry mouth (in fact, there is no dry mouth, but because of the implication of psychological factors, they always feel dry mouth), and even when eating, they will feel the need to add water to swallow [6].
4. Sjogren's syndrome
Sjogren's syndrome is also called "autoimmune exocrine adenitis." This disease is due to the attack of immune cells to destroy their own exocrine glands, resulting in atrophy of the glands and a decrease in secretory function, resulting in various dryness symptoms in the body, such as dry mouth, dry eyes, etc.
However, at this time, the patient's body itself is full of water, and people with Sjögren syndrome generally prefer to drink water multiple times, and the amount of each time is very small [7].
5. Diabetes insipidus
Diabetes insipidus due to antidiuretic hormone deficiency can cause patients to develop symptoms such as polyuria and dry mouth and polyphagia.
Our normal people's daily urine output is about 2 to 3 L, so if the urine output in 24 hours is greater than 4 to 10 L, and this phenomenon lasts for more than half a month, we must be vigilant against the possibility of diabetes insipidus [8].
In addition, benign lymphoepithelial lesions, primary biliary cirrhosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and sleep apnea can cause dry mouth.
Physiological dry mouth and drink more water can basically alleviate, and if it is pathological dry mouth or dry mouth for unknown reasons, even if you drink more water, it is difficult to completely alleviate it, and it may be more and more serious to drag it out for a long time, it is recommended that you quickly go to the hospital to see!
Special Author: Xu Hao
Attending physician of the Department of Neurosurgery at the First Affiliated Hospital of the University of Science and Technology of China
Review expert: Fang Hongjuan
Deputy Chief Physician, Department of Endocrinology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital
bibliography
[1]. Silvers AR, Som PM. Salivary glands. Radiol Clin North Am. 1998 Sep;36(5):941-66.
[2]. Pedersen AML, S rensen CE, Proctor GB, Carpenter GH, Ekstr m J. Salivary secretion in health and disease. J Oral Rehabil. 2018 Sep;45(9):730-746.
[3]. Tan ECK, Lexomboon D, Sandborgh-Englund G, Haasum Y, Johnell K. Medications That Cause Dry Mouth As an Adverse Effect in Older People: A Systematic Review and Metaanalysis. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2018 Jan;66(1):76-84.
[4]. Fran ois H, Mariette X. Renal involvement in primary Sj gren syndrome. Nat Rev Nephrol. 2016 Feb;12(2):82-93.
[5]. Yamamoto K, Kurihara M, Matsusue Y, Komatsu Y, Tsuyuki M, Fujimoto T, Nakamura S, Kirita T. Atrophic change of tongue papilla in 44 patients with Sj gren syndrome. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol Endod. 2009 Jun;107(6):801-5.
[6]. Cappetta K, Beyer C, Johnson JA, Bloch MH. Meta-analysis: Risk of dry mouth with second generation antidepressants. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2018 Jun 8;84(Pt A):282-293.
[7]. Vivino FB. Sjogren's syndrome: Clinical aspects. Clin Immunol. 2017 Sep;182:48-54.
[8] Arman F, Shakeri H, Nobakht N, Rastogi A, Kamgar M. A Case of Kidney Involvement in Primary Sj gren's Syndrome. Am J Case Rep. 2017 Jun 3;18:622-626.
*The content of this article is a popularization of health knowledge and cannot be used as a specific diagnosis and treatment recommendation, nor is it a substitute for face-to-face consultation by a practicing physician, for reference only.
*The copyright of this article belongs to Tencent Medical Code, unauthorized media reprinting is prohibited, and illegal reprinting will be investigated for legal responsibility according to law. Individuals are welcome to forward to the circle of friends.