Dry Mouth is Not Just An Inconvenience

How's your mouth? Any ulcers, teeth hurting, dry feeling, always thirsty, just plain uncomfortable?

Dry mouth is annoying, and distracting, making it hard to concentrate on pretty much anything else, but it can cause serious issues too.

If you like having teeth, don't want infections,  of just don't like pain, you really need to do something about it. I treated it as just a nuisance, until I read a post about it by Dr Donald Thomas (the Rheumatologist who wrote The Lupus Encyclopaedia.) He made it more than clear that dry mouth is something we really need to treat seriously.

Now, I'm getting serious.  I talked to my dentist, and have gone from annual to twice-yearly dental check-ups.  I use a dry mouth toothpaste and mouthwash.  I also carry a dry mouth spray in my handbag, and keep a tube of dry mouth gel by my bed.  (The gel is squeezed on the tongue, and the tongue used to coat the mouth with goo.)

Specialist dry mouth toothpastes and mouthwashes are more expensive than the standard ones, of course. But on the other hand, I haven't had mouth ulcers since I started using them. I'm still bothered by the dry feeling in my mouth, but the pain isn't such a nuisance.

I tried using sugar-free gum for a while.  That does help with dry mouth, but there's a limit to how much I can use.  Sugar-free gum is sweetened with a product that acts as a laxative, and I already have gut issues.  So it's good, but needs to be used sparingly.

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