Dry Mouth or Excessive Thirst

Does your mouth often feel like it is made of sandpaper or stuffed with cotton? If so, you may have XEROSTOMIA, the medical moniker for dry mouth. Occasional dry mouth is normal and usually a sign you are dehydrated from too much salt, alcohol, or heat. It can also be your body's way of telling you that you are under stress and need to chill out.

But if you feel cool as a cucumber and your mouth is still parched, it may be a reaction to one of more than 400 prescription and over the counter medicines. The major culprits are antihistamines, diuretics, astringent mouthwashes, antidepressants, and some blood pressure medications.

In some cases, a parched mouth can be a dead giveaway that you are using illicit drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine. Or it may be a telltale sign that you are drinking too much; alcohol is very dehydrating to the body.

Occasionally, dry mouth signals an injury to the salivary glands from a neck trauma, surgery, radiation treatment, or chemotheraphy. Radiation related dry mouth is permanent, while the dry mouth from chemotherapy is usually temporary.

Dry mouth may be an early warning sign of certain autoimmune disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis and sjogren's syndrome. Other common signs of sjogren's, which primarily affects women, are dry eye, nasal dryness, and joint inflammation. Lastly, dry mouth can signal serious conditions such as Parkinson's disease, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, and even HIV/AIDS.

It is often difficult to distinguish dry mouth from excessive thirst, one often results in the other. But extreme or unquenchable thirst can be a danger sign of advanced hyperthyroidism. Extreme hunger is another sign. But if you are feeling hungry all the time and also have to urinate a lot, extreme thirst may signal undiagnosed or uncontrolled diabetes, which can be a precursor to a diabetic coma.

Saliva helps moisten our food so we can chew, swallow, and digest it more easily. And it washes away food and bacteria, thus preventing bad breath, tooth decay, and gum disease. Without spit, we would lose all our teeth within 6 months!

Theoretically, any substance, disease, or marker that can be detected in the blood can also be found in the saliva. To date, home and workplace saliva tests can detect illicit drugs, alcohol, HIV, hormonal changes, and even stress. Scientests have also had some success in detecting oral cancer from saliva.

If you put a cracker in your mouth and have difficulty chewing or swallowing it, you have flunked the "cracker test," an indicator of dry mouth.