Question for the Hive Mind: Dry Mouth at Night

Hi Steve dry mouth is the one side effect that lingers   I am almost 5 years I use 1/2 a xyimelt every night ti start with was 2 one in each side I now need 1/2 one. I became Ann expert at waking and sipping water without disturbing my sleep. Now I rarely need water in the night. There various spray you can try or get prescription for I never found any that worked for me. Acupuncture stimulated my saliva glands and chewing sugar free gum during the day. 
It does improve but takes tkne our mouths and saliva glands take a huge battering to cure us. 
Hazel. 

What worked for me was stop Duraphat for a few months and have a fluoride varnish at hygienist. Chlorhexidine mouthwash before bed but 30 minutes after any toothpaste with SLS. Two xylimelts. Water in bedside table. I got into a rhythm and could sip water in my sleep. 
Your mouth dries up at night because you sleep with your mouth open. I got adept at tucking my head down and wrapping the bedclothes round me to stop that. You can buy strips to keep your mouth closed. Didn’t try those though 

Hi Stephen

Dry mouth is always worse at night I have found. I found the Xylimelts made such a difference and I hardly needed to sip water at night. Definitely give them a go. After my latest op I found I could no longer use Xylimelts for various reasons (although they are my preference) and am now using Oral 7 or Biotine mouth gel. The mouth gel works a treat but I do have to apply it on my tongue a couple of times during the night when I wake up with my mouth like the Sahara. It moistens things up nicely along with a sip of water and I get back to sleep easily then. I find the mouth spray works fairly well during the day but does not last as long as the gel and wouldn’t bother using it at night.

I am sure one of these will work well for you.

Lyn

Where or how do I get help with salivary glands?????

Chew sugar free gum. That stimulates what salivary function is left. I’ve suggested how you can go about getting acupuncture in your other thread. It doesn’t work for everybody but it’s worth trying. 

That sounds quite normal to me. 2 years on I still get a dry mouth at night, although it has slowly improved. I never got on with Xylimelts but some do. In the day I chew sugar free gum which stimulate the saliva remarkably well. Re the scarring where my tonsil was taken out, this has never fully healed but I’ve learned to live with it.
Well done on the discharge. A momentous step in your journey 

Hi,

My husband is suffering also.

Can I ask are you able to eat? He finds it hard with lack of saliva.

In the beginning I made the mistake of chasing every mouthful down with warm tea. This filled me up very quickly. I hit on the idea of taking a tiny sip with each mouthful to act as a kind of proxy saliva. It worked a treat. 

Pacey said:

Can I ask are you able to eat? He finds it hard with lack of saliva

Hi Pacey.  Yes, I can eat but I need a glass of water nearby to help some things go down. Bread and chips are especially hard at times. The saliva situation has certainly improved over the two years since treatment ended, but I’m resigned to the fact that it’ll likely never fully recover. I chew a lot of sugar free gum in the day and sip water in the night to help keep my mouth salivated. 

Hi Pacey

My first radiotherapy was 10 years ago and my second lot was in 2019. I have a very dry mouth. My eating is different now since further ops but back then I  found that I needed very moist foods and that worked well.I used to eat casseroles, meat with lots of gravy or sauces but always found chicken very dry and hard to swallow. I even managed a Big Mac back then as it had loads of sauce in it and the burger was quite juicy. Potatoes were always a challenge as they were grainy and dry even mashed potato. It is a matter of experimentation I found so I had to abandon some things. Texture as well as moisture content plays a big part in the type of food I could manage but on the whole I found a lot of things that were O.K. but had to abandon a few others. Little sips of water while eating helped to wash things down.

Lyn