Okay folks, here’s your last chance. You read the thread title but came in here anyhow, don’t go blaming me if you find this to be TMI.
I’ve got phlegm mouth.
Phlegm mouth, know it and hate it. You’ve got stuffy sinuses and have spent the night sleeping with your mouth open. On top of that, the antihistamine and decongestant you’ve been taking has systematically removed the slightest trace of saliva from your body, like little spit fairies with sponges, mops, and shammies cleaning up a mess in aisle 10.
You wake up and feel like someone has installed velvet carpeting all over the inside of your mouth. You would close your mouth, but you fear that you may not be able to get it open again. Speaking requires a great deal of effort and maybe a drink of water first. but the water sublimates a it approaches the Death Valley of your oral cavity.
Your SO is kind enough not to say anything, but the family dog never lies. You have morning breath the likes of which god himself has never seen. Several minutes of vigorous brushing with the toothbrush gives a fleeting sense of relief, but the feeling returns like kudzu reclaiming an abandoned field.
Aha, you think, I just need to drink a lot of water. But all you wind up with is a full bladder and this sloshy feeling in your stomach. There is no relief. You briefly consider a saliva transfusion, but the visual image of an IV bag full of “Donor Saliva” with a tube running down to your mouth makes you gag. And besides, where would this saliva come from? Do they still have saliva drives?
The feeling will pass as the day goes on. Soon enough, you feel like a non-spit challenged person. But a slow horror creeps over you. Night approaches, and with it the need for sleep. You start to feel a dry tickle in the back of your throat. There is no escape from the demons of phlegm mouth.
I refuse to think about Saliva drives, donations or transfusions but you are correct in that your mouth needs some serious moisture. There are a few things you can try,
There really is a thing called saliva substitute but its more for chronic dry mouth, usually due to diseases or medications, than for temporary relief from overdry mucous membranes.
Do a search on stomatitis diet–stomatitis is a common side effect of certain cancers and treatments. I know you don’t have cancer but these tips are universal. The following excerpt is from an oncology site.
Try eating ice if you can tolerate it, sucking on throat lozenges like riccola or similar, stick to foods that are soft cool and moist. Avoid extremes in texture or temperature. Avoid alcohol, or overly spicey stuff.
You can buy glycerin at the drugstore mix a teaspoon or so with equal amount of water or non alcohol mouthwash. Swish and spit.
Now before you go to bed try to treat the cause of the nose that is so stuffed up you have to breath through your mouth thereby causing the ick mouth. Try decongestant nasal spray, and/or saline nasal spray to clean the debris out. Consider that you may have a superficial mouth infection due to the overdrying of your mucous membranes which to be kept moist at all times and will crack if allowed to dry out.
[sub]DISCLAIMER–I am an RN but these suggestions are offered from personal experience and are not to be interpreted as medical advice and as such are not meant to replace the advice of your physician.[/sub]
I am a sufferer of acute sinutitus and non-allergic vaso-motor rhinitis and can share your pain! I do NOT understand how those drugs can dry up every drop of saliva and not do a thing for the vast quantities of snot in my nose.
Hey Duck, they don’t have saliva drives. It comes from a Saliva Farm. You know how they used to get insulin from pigs? Well, what’s the drooliest animal you can think of? That’s all I’m saying.
They usually keep the farmed saliva back for really serious cases. And it Kosher!
-Rue.
You mean they have farms where Bull Mastiffs (i.e. Hooch in Turner & Hooch) are chained up like poor veal beeves with pictures of raw steaks dangling in front of them to promote salivation? (Some farms use bells, but they tend to be classicists) And drool-maids come around twice a day to empty the buckets?
