Dry Mouth Facts Houston Dentists Want You to Know

A dry mouth can lead to complications. In short, it is a serious condition that should never be ignored.

But what exactly would a Houston dentist want you to know about it? Here is a breakdown.

Causes

1. Medications

Some common drug classes linked to drug-induced xerostomia include:

What you can do:

Being proactive allows you to find out about medication-related dry mouth early. You and your doctor may be able to adjust dosages, change drugs entirely, or manage symptoms before they worsen.

2. Autoimmune Disorders

Certain chronic illnesses and infections can also affect saliva production. Examples include medical conditions like:

3. Cancer

Some types of chemotherapy may also cause it. Cancer itself, especially when tumors affect the salivary glands directly, can significantly reduce how much saliva your body creates.

What you can do:

Being proactive allows you to detect medication-related dry mouth early. You and your doctor may be able to adjust dosages, change drugs entirely, or manage symptoms before they worsen.

4. Breathing Through the Mouth

Mouth breathing, which often occurs during sleep, is also a common cause. It can dry out oral tissues.

Try using a humidifier. And stay hydrated before bedtime. You can also use special tape to keep your lips closed at night and encourage nasal breathing.

5. Mental health

Mental health disorders like chronic anxiety, high stress levels, and clinical depression affect whole-body health, including oral wellness. Feeling constantly anxious or overwhelmed appears especially linked to temporary reductions in saliva flow. Researchers think this is due to key hormones.

To do:

Be patient with yourself but do take active steps to lower your anxiety and improve your ability to cope. This can indirectly help improve your dry mouth over time.

6. Dehydration

Not consuming enough water and fluids every day leads to whole-body dehydration. Your body tries to conserve fluid by reducing saliva production. This inadvertently dries out oral tissues.

Tips:

Prevent dehydration proactively to avoid dry mouth problems. Overlooked dehydration is one of the most easily fixed reasons for low saliva flow. Pay attention to your fluid intake.

7. Aging

Growing older is accompanied by many changes in the body, including in the mouth. As adults reach their senior years, the salivary glands simply produce less saliva. Estimates show adults make about 40-50% less spit around age 70 compared to their younger adult years.

Aging is not a cause of dry mouth that you can control per se. But knowing dry mouth tends to crop up with age allows you to prepare and treat it proactively.

Other Contributing Factors

Many other health factors may tip someone over into experiencing dry mouth. And so, pay attention if you develop dry mouth symptoms within a short timeframe. Discuss your oral changes with your physician to rule out or address an underlying medical issue that requires treatment. Catching and resolving the root problem early is ideal.

Annoying Dry Mouth Symptoms

Wondering if a bothersome dry mouth could be behind your oral health complaints? Carefully look over the following list of classic signs:

Hard to Swallow, Speak, Taste

Dry, Cracking Lips and Mouth Sores

Gum, Tooth, and Denture Discomfort

Pay attention if you experience these complaints frequently or notice them worsening. Visit a Houston dentistry, such as the one found here, promptly if dry mouth makes it harder for you to eat, swallow food, or speak normally comfortably.

Why does inadequate saliva flow cause these oral health issues? Let’s break it down…

Dental Problems Related to Insufficient Saliva

It’s not just quality of life that suffers when you have chronic dry mouth or periods of low saliva. An absence of healthy saliva flow contributes to an array of actual dental health issues, including:

1. Accelerated Tooth Decay

When not enough saliva is present, decay-causing pathogens can linger longer and penetrate deeper into your tooth enamel. This greatly accelerates the formation of new cavities as well as speeding up any existing areas of decay.

Plaque also builds up much faster, turning into hardened tartar in a shorter timeframe. Your dentist may recommend more frequent dental cleanings and checkups to combat this uptick in your decay risk.

2. Gum Disease

There are antioxidants and antibodies found naturally in your saliva. These compounds help fight pathogenic bacteria that infect your gums and subsequently the bone structures supporting your teeth.

Too little saliva provides less of these protective factors. Harmful bacteria species can easily overpopulate and stick tighter to your teeth near the gumline. These infectious pathogens eat away at tissues and provoke sustained inflammation. Clinical gum disease with complications can develop much faster. Monitor your gums closely and maintain a strict oral hygiene routine.

3. Halitosis aka Bad Breath

One obvious and embarrassing dry mouth symptom involves bad breath, also called oral malodor. Your saliva helps remove stinky, volatile sulfur compounds created by oral bacteria on your tongue. Less saliva means more smelly bacteria proliferate and create noxious gases that you can smell on someone’s breath across a room.

While foul breath smells aren’t dangerous themselves, avoiding bad breath is key to your confidence and quality of life. Stay on top of your oral hygiene game.

4. Burning Mouth Syndrome

For reasons not fully understood yet by dental researchers, dry mouth sufferers sometimes additionally develop burning and tingling sensations in different areas of the mouth. Nerves may become oversensitive and easily irritated without the protective, lubricating function of saliva.

If you experience random bouts of burning mouth discomfort, experiment to see which products, foods, and lifestyle modifications provide you the most relief. Work with your dentist to pin down the source and discuss options to manage it.

5. Difficulty With Oral Functions

Having inadequate lubricating saliva can create issues with basic oral functions like comfortably chewing food, swallowing liquids and solids, and speaking clearly. Thick, flowing saliva typically helps create the right amount of friction and moisture.

Don’t simply put up with Avoiding certain foods, over-the-counter saliva substitutes, a soft toothbrush, and dentist-provided therapies can greatly improve your ability to eat, drink, swallow, and chat effortlessly.

How Daily Habits Worsen Dry Mouth

Many aspects of an average person’s everyday diet, lifestyle, and oral hygiene habits exacerbate underlying dry mouth issues. Be mindful of these factors:

Sugary Foods and Beverages

The bacteria responsible for tooth decay feed heavily on any sugars you consume. When you combine sugar intake with inadequate saliva flow, you provide the perfect environment for rampant cavities and gum disease.

Even if you have always been lucky with few dental issues in the past, dry mouth changes the playing field. Sticky candies, regular soda drinks, sweetened coffee, or desserts with tons of frosting become much more problematic. Rethink your usual snacking habits.

Tobacco Smoking and Chewing

Tobacco use greatly aggravates dry mouth no matter which forms — smoking cigarettes, little cigars, pipes, or chewing tobacco or snuff pouches. The heat, nicotine, and over 4,000 other chemicals rob your mouth of much-needed moisture. They also provoke gum recession and oral cancer risks among other threats.

Stress and Anxiety Triggers

Unmanaged chronic stress and anxiety cause whole-body inflammation, including inside your mouth. Key stress hormones hamper healthy saliva production over time while allowing pathogenic oral bacteria to thrive. Don’t ignore your mental health — seek professional counseling and relaxation techniques.

Open-Mouth Breathing

This habitual mouth breathing dries out tissues. So does snoring and sleep apnea. Ask your doctor about anti-snoring mouth guards or nasal strips to encourage nose breathing. Keep indoor air lightly humidified and remain hydrated.

A Low-Moisture Diet

What you regularly eat and drink directly impacts your oral moisture too. A diet heavy in dry, salty snack foods or starchy breads/cereals doesn’t give your mouth much liquid refreshment to produce saliva. Shift your meal plans toward foods with higher water content like fruits, smoothies, yogurt, soups, and stews.

Now that you understand the major causes and contributors to dry mouth, let’s get the full story on how you can minimize annoying symptoms starting today…

7 Tips to Stimulate Saliva Flow

Houston dentists suggest these helpful methods to get your salivary glands working better and keep oral tissues comfy:

1. Sip Water Constantly

Staying proactively hydrated helps. Sparkling water provides a pleasant sensation too.

Aim for at least 64 ounces of total fluid daily.

2. Chew Xylitol-Sweetened Gum

It encourages saliva production.

The chewing motion physically stimulates glands while xylitol-sweetened gum draws moisture into the mouth. Unlike sugar, xylitol actively prevents tooth decay too!

Go with a flavor you enjoy like refreshing mint, citrus, cinnamon, or fruit flavors. The pleasurable taste incentivizes you to chew longer and reap the dry mouth benefits.

3. Apply Moisturizing Oral Rinses

Look for thick, gel-like saliva replacement products at pharmacies and stores like Biotene, ACT Total Care Dry Mouthwash, TheraBreath Dry Mouth Oral Rinse, and Oasis Moisturizing Mouth Spray. Use them liberally anytime your mouth feels dry and raw.

4. Massage Areas Near Salivary Glands

Perform self-massage whenever you feel your mouth drying out multiple times per day. Any boost in moisture provides some relief.

5. Rinse With Salt Water

Mix a pinch of plain salt into water and rinse your mouth out for a minute at a time whenever it feels uncomfortably dry. The mineral content of salt encourages your salivary glands to produce more moisture. It also helps cleanse bacteria off tissues.

Repeat saline rinses as often as every couple of hours to continually prompt your glands.

6. Avoid or Alter Irritating Foods

Very hot, cold, acidic, salty, or sugary foods often provoke discomfort in a dry mouth. Unfortunately, that rules out many processed snacks and drinks! However, you have options:

With some clever substitutions and alterations, you can still enjoy a satisfying diet.

7. Brush Gently With Flouride Toothpaste

Be very gentle yet thorough when brushing natural teeth if you have recurring dry mouth. Use an extra soft or soft bristle toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste. Brush at a 45° angle using extremely light pressure along the gumlines as well as the tooth surfaces.

Rinse carefully after brushing.