Can Allergies Cause Dry Mouth

Allergic Rhinitis And A Dry Throat

When suffering from allergic rhinitis, the body releases histamine in an attempt to get rid of allergens. This can result in inflammation of the nasal passages and, in turn, congestion can become problematic as the amount of air able to travel in and out of the nose is restricted.

At this point we must rely on our mouth to breathe but unfortunately it does the job less effectively than the nose and, as a result, a dry throat can become an issue.

When you take a breath in, cold air enters the mouth and dries out the moisture created by saliva. The tissues in the mouth are quite sensitive so this means we tend to notice the effects of dryness and it may eventually lead to a sore throat.

Dry Scratchy Or Sore Throat From Allergies Or Illness

There are so many causes for sore through. Not only is it one of the earliest cold symptoms, it is also a common allergy symptom. Whether your through is just dry and scratchy from talking loudly at a party or from something more serious, the discomfort is real. If there isnt an obvious cause, be sure to visit a medical professional to diagnose the source of your sore throat.

One leading allergy-related cause of sore throat is postnasal drip. It often originates from an increase in nasal cavity mucus and inflammation. In that case, a decongestant may help relieve the sore throat until allergy season ends. However, the medication may cause other issues like the dry mouth that we mentioned earlier. Sometimes it may feel like a vicious circle as allergy sufferers use prescription or over the counter medication to relieve one set of symptoms only to find that the treatment results in another source of discomfort.

Some other sources of relief include sipping tea with honey or using sugar-free cough drops to soothe your throat. Also, seek medical treatment for the allergy to reduce the pressure and inflammation. In some cases, prescription or over the counter medication may relieve the pain on a temporary basis.

The dental professionals at Southview Dentistry strive to help Charlotte residents enjoy oral health and wellbeing. Contact us today if you are in the area and need to schedule a dental examination or if you are experiencing any discomfort in your mouth.

Allergies Versus Oral Health

While allergies can result in tingly or swollen lips, mouth, or tongue and irritated gums, the most common way seasonal allergies can become a problem for oral health is dry mouth. Whenever we have congestion, we end up breathing through our mouths instead of our noses, which dries up our saliva. Having dry mouth presents a serious threat to oral health because saliva is the mouths first line of defense against gum disease and tooth decay.

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How To Get Rid Of Chapped Lips From An Allergy

Pink lips enhance your beauty and make you look enticing. But, due to allergic reaction few people may experience chapped lips. In most cases, allergies trigger when the allergen come in direct contact with lips. It can be lipstick, toothpaste or any lip care products.

As you knew, allergic reaction leads to different symptoms. Sinus is one among them, which makes your mucus, skin dry and it can cause chapped lips.

One of the best ways to get rid of chapped lips is to treat the allergy. Anyway, there are few home remedies with which you can bring back the lost moisture to your rosy lips.

Everyone who has chapped lips doesnt mean that she/he has allergic reaction. There are other bunch of causes of dry lips such has wind, heat, sunlight, breathing through mouth because of nasal congestion and cosmetic creams.

Licking your lips will not help saliva will dry out your lips more than it was before you licked them. There are few lip care product that can hydrate lips and make them attractive, but if youre allergic to its ingredient that you shouldnt try it.

Best way to prevent drying of lips in extreme weather conditions is to wrap your face including lips with a cloth.

Other Causes Of A Sore Throat

There are many causes of a sore throat, ranging from bacterial infections, flu, and causes as serious as throat cancer. If you are uncertain about the cause of your sore throat, or the symptoms do not ease after a couple of weeks, it is worth seeking the advice of a doctor.

If the pain and irritation in your throat is severe and accompanied by difficulty in breathing or swallowing, seek medical attention immediately. This is because in rare circumstances, allergies can give rise to swelling in the back of the throat to the extent that it becomes a medical emergency.

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When To Call The Doctor

When should dry mouth be treated by a healthcare provider?

If you have:

• Severe symptoms: See a provider right away.
• Risk factors for HIV: If you have dry mouth and any HIV risk factors, see your healthcare provider.
• Tooth decay: See your dentist for an examination.

Last reviewed by a Cleveland Clinic medical professional on 03/02/2021.

References

Dry Mouth: A Bigger Problem Than You Might Think

Perhaps the biggest way allergies affect oral health is by causing dry mouth. When our noses are too stuffy to breathe out of them properly, we resort to the next best thing: breathing out of our mouths. Mouth breathing really slows down saliva production and leaves your mouth feeling uncomfortably dry. And when the mouth is dry with no saliva to help wash away bacteria and neutralize acids, your teeth are left exposed. This can make you more likely to have tooth decay, chronically bad breath, or can even lead to gum disease. Gum disease, if left untreated, can affect the rest of your body by increasing the risk for stroke, heart disease, and heart attacks.

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Can Allergies Cause Dry Mouth

If youve ever wondered can allergies cause dry mouth?, you might have struggled to find a concrete answer. Allergic reactions themselves dont typically give you dry mouth, but several factors relating to allergies can lead to this side effect. So the answer to the question is yes: allergies can indirectly result in dryness of the mouth , along with all the potential complications that accompany the condition.

Dry Mouth And Runny Nose

• Medical Author: Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD

Reviewed on 8/31/2020

Allergic reactions to indoor or outdoor allergens, hay fever and the common cold can all cause runny nose that can sometimes be accompanied by dry mouth. Dry mouth can occur as a side effect of medications that you may be taking for your cold symptoms. Check in with your doctor if you are experiencing any troubling symptoms.

While the list below can be considered as a guide to educate yourself about these conditions, this is not a substitute for a diagnosis from a health care provider. There are many other medical conditions that also can be associated with your symptoms and signs. Here are a number of those from MedicineNet:

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How Do Allergies Cause Dry Throat

Allergies are commonly caused by hay fever, cold weather, and other environmental allergens, such as dust, dander, mold, and pollen.

Hay fever: The term “hay fever” is a bit misleading since fever isn’t one of the symptoms of this condition. Hay fever is also called allergic rhinitis because it includes a variety of symptoms that affect your nose. Nasal symptoms and others can include:

• Nasal congestion
• Coughing
• Sneezing

Postnasal drip occurs when excess mucus drains from your sinuses and nasal passageways into the back of your throat. This can lead to the feeling of dryness or scratchiness, and it often makes you feel like you constantly need to clear your throat.

Cold weather: A dry throat occurs more often in the winter than other months due to the cold weather. Air is drier during the winter months because the humidity is lower. This can cause dry air to enter the throat and nasal passages. In addition, people tend to spend more time indoors, which leads to worsening of symptoms caused by indoor allergens, such as dust, pet dander, and cockroach droppings.

Other allergens and irritants: Dry throat is also commonly triggered by airborne allergens and irritants, both indoors and outdoors. These can include:

• Smoke
• Smog
• Fungi

An Introduction To Sore Dry And Itchy Throats And Seasonal Allergies

Dry, itchy and sore throats are common symptoms which many seasonal allergies sufferers have to endure. They may not be the symptoms which spring to mind when we think of allergies, but for those who experience it, they can be some of the most irritating, making it painful to swallow.Dry throatWe all know that if we hold our nose, we have to breathe through our mouth. Holding your nose creates a similar effect to that of nasal congestion. If seasonal allergies is causing a blocked nose, you will be forced to use your mouth to breathe.

Your nose is lined with fine hair and mucus, making it more effective at warming air than your mouth. Having a blocked nose means that cold air is entering your mouth and throat when you breathe, drying out the moisture created by saliva. As the tissue in your throat is more sensitive than your mouth, we tend to notice the effect of dryness in our throats first.

Itchy throatYour nose is also better at filtering air than your mouth. This means that it traps pollen particles before they can enter into your system. However, when you begin to breathe through your mouth, the pollen particles have direct access into your body. They land at the back of your throat, irritating the tissue.

Sore throatThe combination of a dry and itchy throat, particularly over a prolonged period of time such as throughout the seasonal allergies season, often causes the throat tissues to become inflamed this is experienced as a sore throat.

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Symptoms Of Dry Mouth

Its not difficult to recognize the symptoms of dry mouth. They can include a dry sensation in your throat that makes it hard for you to swallow, along with problems speaking, chewing or tasting your food. You may also have a dry tongue and cracked lips, as well as sores or infections in your mouth tissues, including the sides of the tongue and the inside of your cheeks.

Experiencing any of these symptoms would be a reason to visit your doctor. If youre taking medication for your allergies, its possible this is making the problem worse.

How Do Antihistamines Work

There are two major classes of antihistamines, Charles Joseph Lane, M.D., a board-certified allergist based in Lynchburg, Virginia, tells SELF. First, there are the older medications, referred to as first-generation antihistamines, which include drugs like diphenhydramine and chlorpheniramine. Then there are the newer, second-generation antihistamines , which include many of the oral allergy medications youll find at the drugstore, like cetirizine , levocetirizine , fexofenadine , and loratadine .

All of these medications work generally in the same way: by targeting the bodys histamine-production system, which generates many of the symptoms we think of as allergies. Normally, when your body is exposed to an allergen that youre sensitive totree pollen, cat dander, dust, etc.it erroneously interprets that substance as a threat and sets off an immune response to combat it. This happens when the proteins in an allergen bind to IgE antibodies on the surface of mast cells, which causes the cell to release histamine, Dr. Lane explains. That histamine goes on to bind to histamine receptors, which then sets off reactions such as a runny nose, watery eyes, and other classic allergy symptoms.

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Why Do We Get Seasonal Allergies

While there are plenty of allergens that can make us sneeze year-round, such as dust and pet dander, seasonal allergies typically flare up twice a year: in the spring and the fall. This can mean long months of congestion, an itchy nose, mouth, eyes, or throat, puffy eyes, sneezing, and coughing for people with allergies.

The reason our allergies act up the most during spring and fall is that trees and grass pollinate throughout the spring, while ragweed pollinates in the fall. Mold will also send out spores around the same time. Allergic reactions, including seasonal allergies, are the result of our immune systems going into overdrive in response to these allergens.

What Causes Seasonal Allergies

Are There Home Remedies For A Sore Throat

As your sore throat is likely to be caused by dryness from breathing or irritation from post-nasal drip, it is important to drink plenty of water. This will keep the back of your throat moist, but will also help to thin the mucus building up at the back of your throat, reducing irritation. If your throat is feeling itchy, then drinking plenty of water will also ease the symptom.

If you are not fond of the taste of plain water, then drinking a concoction of warm water and honey has been used for years to ease the symptoms of a sore throat. Aside from the soothing effect this drink has, it has also been shown to be an effective wound healer, so may speed up recovery from the symptom.

Gargling salt water is another age-old remedy for sore throats. The antiseptic properties of salt should also prevent an infection from setting in.

Of course, as the old saying goes, prevention is better than cure, so trying to keep out of the way of pollen is probably the most effective remedy. Although it may be impossible to avoid pollen altogether, minimising your exposure to it by avoiding areas of freshly cut grass, for example, are measures worth employing.

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How Do You Know Which Medication Is Right For You

Figuring out the right allergy medication for you depends on your symptoms, your preferences, and a careful weighing of the side effects that drug might produce. So, if youre not sure whats right for youparticularly if youve tried a few over-the-counter options without successits worth talking to an allergist about what might work. In addition to the OTC options, there are prescription allergy medications they can prescribe as well as eye drops and nasal sprays that may be better for your particular set of symptoms.

When choosing an antihistamineor trying to figure out where a new symptom came frombe aware that the medication can come with side effects, including some that may be a little surprising. Here are some of the most common antihistamine side effects that you should know about.

Can Allergies Cause Mucus With Blood

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Dry Mouth Is A Common Problem

If you are one of the millions of people who live with near-constant dry mouth, you know this condition can be so much more than just a nuisance.

Dry mouth, which is known medically as xerostomia, occurs when your salivary glands don’t produce enough saliva to keep your mouth hydrated.

“Untreated, dry mouth can cause difficulty swallowing foods as you need saliva to moisten your food,” says Erich P. Voigt, MD, an associate professor of otolaryngology, head and neck surgery at NYU Langone Health in New York City.

“It can cause dental decay and increase your risk for mouth infections including yeast infection too as saliva also helps protect your mouth from germs.”

Here’s what else you need to know about dry mouth causes and what to do for treatment.

Medicine Can Make Dry Mouth Worse

To help ease allergy symptoms and clear out sinuses so we can breathe out of our noses easier, many of us turn to medicine. Most allergy medicines available list dry mouth as a potential side effect. So while you may be solving one problem by reducing sinus stuffiness, you may be creating another by the very thing that helped you get relief. To combat dry mouth caused by medicine, talk to your doctor for other solutions or try:

• Chewing sugar-free gum
• Using mouthwash made to help lubricate the mouth
• Drinking plenty of water

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What Can I Do To Manage Dry Mouth

You can also try these other steps, which may help improve saliva flow:

To ease irritation linked with dry mouth:

• Limit spicy or salty foods, as these may cause pain in a dry mouth.
• Quit smoking.
• Use a moisturizer on your lips.
• Use a soft-bristled toothbrush on your teeth and gums rinse your mouth before and after meals with plain water or a mild mouth rinse .

Tips To Prevent Metallic Taste

Doing some preventive ways is the best approach to save money from dental works and other medical treatments.

You can do the following steps to minimize the metal taste in your mouth.

• Maintain good oral hygiene, such as brushing your teeth twice a day, flossing daily, and cleaning your tongue regularly to keep your mouth healthy.
• Avoid using metal cutlery and water bottles. Instead, try to use plastic, glass, or ceramic versions.
• Stay hydrated to prevent dry mouth.
• Stop smoking or using any tobacco products, as it may worsen the taste of metal.
• Suck on ice, chips, and unsweetened ice pops.
• Pop a mint or a piece of sugar-free gum
• Eat foods that can cover the metal taste, such as lemon, lime juices, or pickles.

Moreover, whatever you do to prevent this symptom, do not disregard the root of the issue. If you have persistent awful taste buds, it would be better to talk with your doctor. They are the only ones who can determine if you have a severe health condition and help you find ways to treat the underlying cause.

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