Saliva plays an important role in your digestion and keeping your mouth moist. Your mouth contains saliva for essential reasons like it washes away the bacteria and fights plaque and tartar build-up in your mouth. It is totally impossible to chew and swallow your food without the presence of saliva. Moreover, saliva has properties that fight off bacteria and gum infection in your mouth that cause bad breath.
With all the benefits the saliva could give to your health, its production in your mouth is very much needed. If the saliva in your mouth is not enough to serve its functions, you will start to feel some discomfort and pain in your oral health. The worst thing that could happen is for you to have a dry mouth or better called xerostomia. This happens when the glands that are supposed to produce saliva are no longer able to produce enough saliva. But don’t worry because dry mouth treatment can be done in just 2 days!
What Does Dry Mouth Feel Like?
Before you proceed with any dry mouth treatment, you also need to ensure if you are already experiencing different dry mouth symptoms. Check the list below.
- Always thirsty
- Chapped lips
- Recurring canker sore in the mouth
- A burning feeling in your tongue, inside cheeks, and gums
- Bad breath
- Plaque build-up
- Unable to taste the flavor of the food
- Very red tongue
- Frequent sore throat
- Hoarse voice
What Causes Dry Mouth?
Medications Taken
If you are taking some medicines for your health problems, you are most likely to suffer dry mouth. Drugs that are used to treat mental health and respiratory problems such as depression, anxiety, asthma, colds have side effects on your body and this includes a dry mouth. All medications have side effects no matter what type of health problem you have. You will only experience dry mouth relief once you are well and had stopped taking these medications.
Dehydration In the Body
If you don’t like to drink water, don’t expect to have some moisture in your mouth. Dehydration is the main reason why you experience dry mouth because there is a need to fill the water you excrete in your urine or sweat. When your body doesn’t acquire the amount of water it needs for different processes and functions, the first thing that is affected is your glands that produce saliva. A dry mouth can be experienced even if you just have mild dehydration.
Effect of Stress
Stress and depression can affect your physical health and not just your mental health. If you are feeling stress most of the time, it will block or slow down the production of saliva in your mouth. A research study conducted to evaluate the effect of stress, anxiety, and depression is proven true in affecting the slow rate of production of saliva in adults.
Unhealthy Lifestyle
You have the choice as to how you want to live your life, therefore, if you live it in a way that is very unhealthy for your mind and body, you will be prone to health imbalance such as a dry mouth. An unhealthy lifestyle that you may have not noticed you are already doing includes lack of sleep, eating unhealthy food, alcoholism, smoking, and not getting enough physical exercise to get your body moving.
Damaged Nerves
If you have undergone head and neck surgeries before, there may be a chance that the nerves in your autonomic nervous system are damaged. These nerves are the ones responsible for controlling the production of saliva in your mouth, so if you happen to experience dry mouth, it could be that these nerves are damaged. Most damaged nerves are caused by radiation from different treatments of serious illnesses like cancer.
What Are the Different Dry Mouth Treatments?
Ask for Medication Alternatives
It is important to talk to your doctors that you don’t want the side effects of your medications so that they can give you alternative medicines if there are any. However, if there are no alternatives given, don’t skip your medications because dry mouth cure can also be done in many ways presented below. This is something that you should not worry about because once you are well with your health problems, you can ask your doctors if you can stop taking medications that cause dry mouth.
Drink Water
Since dehydration causes dry mouth, one of the best home remedies for dry mouth is drinking enough water. You have to stay hydrated all throughout the day so that the water you intake is enough to generate saliva production in your mouth. Remember that you are secreting fluid every minute of the day, therefore, 2-3 cups of water for the whole day’s activities aren’t enough not just for saliva production but also for the fluid needed in your different body functions. Instead, you should drink 8-9 cups of water every day so that your body is fully hydrated.
Use Water Flosser
It is part of your oral routine to floss your mouth. However, flossing may not be effective if you use string floss while you have a dry mouth. Without the saliva, it will be hard to string floss the food particles stuck in your teeth. Good thing there are advanced tools meant for flossing dry mouth called water flossers. A water flosser is not only for people with dental work such as braces that help them clean their mouth completely. It is also very effective for dry mouth relief because it uses streaming water to moisturize your mouth while removing the plaque and tartar build-up in your teeth. Check out the steps given below as well as the video for you to know how water flossers can be used.
Steps in Using Water Flosser
- Fill the reservoir with warm water before placing it on the base.
- Water flossers come with different tips so choose the one that you favored the most.
- Click the tip into the handle.
- Turn on the water flosser and set the control dial too high to let the water flow. (The next time you will use it, you can set the control dial to any type of pressure you want.)
- In a sink, you have to lean over so that the water won’t stream down to your clothes.
- Place the tip at the gumline and let the water flow to clean each tooth.
- Move it from one gum to another.
- Once you have finished flossing your teeth, turn the water flosser off and remove the tip.
With just one water flosser, you will be able to maintain a clean and moist mouth. You can easily buy the best water flosser that saves you from dry mouth problems on Amazon now!
Stop Stressing Over Things You Can’t Control
If you know how to control the things you feed in your mind, the bigger chance for dry mouth cure to happen in just one snap of your fingers. Because worrying about the bad things that you may encounter, will only leave you very anxious. We all know how bad anxiety could be that it ends up consuming your energy, confidence, and even the production of your saliva. Studies show that people with anxiety are prone to dry mouth than those with good mental health. The more you let go of the things that stress you out, the impact it gives on your overall health is tremendously good, most especially for dry mouth relief.
You are only given one life to live so make sure that you make the best of it instead of trying to control things not meant to happen the way you want them. For example, find some time to do the things that make you happy like meditating, playing, spending time with family and friends, or anything else that will help you relax. When you aren’t stressed out, your body is also relaxed which makes it function properly, so you won’t even notice that you have already found a way for dry mouth relief.
Start A Healthy Lifestyle Now!
Dry mouth causes include an unhealthy lifestyle that makes everything worse. If you are aiming for a dry mouth treatment that takes effect right away, you better stop smoking or drinking too much alcohol. Smoking always has a negative effect on maintaining a healthy mouth and since saliva is part of your oral care, it is also one of the things inside your mouth that are affected the most. If the nicotine can make your teeth yellowish and your gums damaged, the smoke that you inhale can damage your mouth tissues or your salivary glands. When these salivary glands are damaged, saliva production is blocked, resulting in dry mouth.
Too much alcohol intake causes dry mouth too. The amount of time for dry mouth relief can be identified according to how much alcohol you consume. That’s why the dryness in your mouth can only be triggered if you disregard the important things that your body needs.
Breathe Through Your Nose
Mouth-breathing is not advisable unless you have nasal congestion or other nasal complications. Because when you breathe through your mouth, you are allowing the air to enter directly into your mouth and this can cause mouth dryness because it dries out the exact amount of saliva that you need. You may have not noticed this but it is important to practice breathing through your nose because it is one of the home remedies for dry mouth at night.
Dry mouth usually happens at night because it is when you are unaware of what you do, including your way of breathing. You can get through this by following the home remedies for dry mouth at night we have prepared below.
Home Remedies for Dry Mouth at Night
- Use two pillows to elevate your head. This allows airways to open so you can breathe through your nose.
- Avoid smoking.
- Install a humidifier in your room.
- Avoid coffee and acidic food before bedtime.
- Eat your dinner 3-4 hours before bedtime.
Limit Caffeine Intake
Almost all people are fond of drinking coffee. It is part of everyone’s morning to have a cup of coffee to start their day. There’s nothing wrong with coffee but if you are the type of person that drinks more coffee than water, it’s time to limit your caffeine intake. Coffee contains tannins that trigger dry mouth. This sensation may not be new to you because you can right away notice that dry feeling in your tongue after drinking coffee.
The tannins will combine as a protein to your saliva, making it dry. So, if you consume 2 or more cups of coffee a day, the rate of saliva production in your mouth will drop. Cutting off coffee intake is one of the most recommended dry mouth cures by the American Dental Association because it has proven bad effects on saliva production according to a research study.
Chew Sugarless Gum
People are into chewing gums because they use it as an alternative to brushing after every break time. Although it can not compete with the benefits of brushing, it is somehow useful as a dry mouth treatment because it generates saliva flow in your mouth. However, you need to be extra careful in choosing the gum that you will use for dry mouth relief because some chewing gums contain sugar that would even add up to dry mouth causes. Remember that sugar is your #1 enemy in maintaining white teeth, healthy gums, and fresh breath. So, consuming these types of sugary chewing gums will only worsen the situation.
You have to buy chewing gum with xylitol as its main ingredient because this is the only gum that doesn’t contain sugar. In this way, you can stimulate saliva production without any side effects that may damage your enamel or gums. It’s made of xylitol but it doesn’t mean that it is not sweet compared to sugary chewing gums because they still taste the same. You just have to check the label or the ingredients of the chewing gum before buying or consuming it.
Chewing gums have a big effect not just on the dry mouth but also on other things that are part of your mouth. Make sure to check the article about how chewing gum can help your overall oral health.
Use Mouthwash for Dry Mouth
The use of mouthwash is common to maintain oral hygiene. However, some mouthwashes contain alcohol that will not only kill the bad bacteria but also the good bacteria that is beneficial for a balanced and healthy mouth. So, there are no total benefits to using this type of mouthwash because it can both clean and destroy your mouth. Moreover, the use of mouthwash is one of the dry mouth causes because it burns the soft tissues in your mouth.
Good thing there are available mouthwashes in the market that can help you maintain fresher breath without drying your mouth. For dry mouth cure, buy mouthwashes with xylitol as its ingredients will keep the moisture in your mouth. In this way, you can rinse your mouth with a mouthwash that fights tooth decay, bad breath, as well as dry mouth.
Brush Your Teeth With Fluoride Toothpaste
For dry mouth relief, use fluoride toothpaste when brushing your teeth. A dry mouth will result in tooth decay because not enough saliva can neutralize the acids in your mouth that cause cavity build-up. Therefore, it is important that you use ingredients that will not make your condition worse. The use of fluoride will stop bacteria from creating holes in your teeth even if your mouth is dry. Fluoride toothpaste serves as a preventive measure for your overall oral health.
Use Biotene Dry Mouth Products
Biotene is the most effective saliva substitute according to a research study conducted by dental professionals. The Biotene oral rinse and other Biotene dry mouth products performed better in enhancing oral lubrication or moisturizing the mouth of people with dry mouth. Xylitol is one of Biotene’s ingredients that’s why it is no longer surprising that it is very effective as a dry mouth treatment. Buying decongestants that you thought would cure dry mouth will only worsen your condition.
Suck Some Ice Chips
You can make your own ice chips or buy some packs that are available over the counter. Ice chips are effective in dry mouth cure because they will dilute in your mouth, creating moist. You will surely feel better if you have ice chips everywhere you go, so every time you feel like generating some saliva, you can consume it right away. Some ice chips contain xylitol, so it is naturally sweet and beneficial for your mouth.
Conclusion
Saliva plays an important role in keeping your mouth and overall body clean and healthy. So, make it a habit to follow the ways given above for your dry mouth treatment. Don’t forget to visit your dentist if you think there is an underlying illness that causes your mouth to be dry.
In case you are afraid of going to the dentist, check out the next article that discusses how to overcome your dental fear effectively.
Disclaimer:
The content in this article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult with a healthcare provider before making any changes to your health regimen. The author and publisher do not take responsibility for any consequences resulting from the information provided in this article.