Frequent dry mouth is not necessarily a lack of water, but may be a signal of disease.

Original clove doctor　

A surprise inspection!

Did you have a good drink of water today?

Or are you feeling thirsty

My throat is as dry as the Sahara desert.

Under normal circumstances, adult women only need to consume 1.1 ~ 1.5 liters of water a day, and adult men only need to consume 1.2 ~ 1.9 liters of water to meet their needs (including water in drinks and food).

But! Some people need more water than this.

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If you eat something at ordinary times, you must have a drink.

Otherwise, it’s too dry to swallow

When sleeping at night

I’m so thirsty that I may even cough

Need to get out of bed for tons of irrigation three times and two times.

Crucially:

I also drank a lot of water, but I just couldn’t quench my thirst!

Don’t be nervous yet ~ Thirst is a normal physiological reaction of human beings. In the short term, it may be that the weather is too hot, eating too salty, and just experienced strenuous exercise.

But if you continue to feel dry mouth and have some other accompanying symptoms, be careful!

This may be a signal from some diseases: your body has several potential health problems that need to be vigilant.

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01

Thyroid diseases

Patients with hyperthyroidism have increased thyroid hormone secretion, accelerated basal metabolic rate and significantly increased oxygen consumption. In addition, the heat production of the body increases, the heat dissipation accelerates, and the demand for water will increase accordingly.

Make your mouth thirsty, become a buffalo, and drink more water than usual.

Hyperthyroidism patients may also be accompanied by increased heart rate, palpitation, shaking hands, diarrhea, more sweating in hands, less hair loss, etc., but the most obvious manifestation may be the thickening of the neck.

In addition, people who used to be nice have suddenly exploded like a runaway scooter recently.

I also feel that I am always upset, insomnia and anxiety, and my brain often has a party late at night, making it difficult to sleep.

In the above situation, it is best to go to the endocrinology department in time and make an appointment for thyroid function determination and ultrasound examination.

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02

sicca syndrome

This is a common rheumatic disease, and the common clinical manifestation is dry mouth for more than 3 months.

Say a word and eat a solid food, you need to drink water. Eyes will feel very dry, like entering the sand.

Different from "dry eye", it is an eye disease, which is caused by insufficient tear secretion or excessive evaporation. Sjogren’s syndrome is a chronic autoimmune disease.

Let’s just say it’s because your own immune organization mistakenly attacked salivary glands, lacrimal glands and other glands. These glands responsible for producing water are destroyed and the water secretion is reduced, so you feel dry mouth and eyes.

The data show that the probability of Sjogren’s syndrome patients suffering from malignant lymphoma is nearly 40 times higher than that of ordinary people. It may also affect other multiple systems of your body and have corresponding clinical manifestations:

Involving the skin, it can be manifested as itching and desquamation of the skin;

Involved in the respiratory tract, dry cough and dyspnea may occur;

Involvement of digestive system may be accompanied by abdominal distension and diarrhea;

Involving the nervous system, limb numbness and weakness, orthostatic hypotension, hyperhidrosis, hypohidrosis or anhidrosis of limb skin, memory and attention loss may occur.

There may also be systemic symptoms such as fatigue and low fever, and a few cases will show high fever, even high fever above 39℃.

Sjogren’s syndrome is generally recommended to go to the Rheumatology Immunology Department for investigation. If there is no such department, you can go to the General Internal Medicine Department for a look.

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03

Diabetes, poor blood sugar control

In addition to often feeling thirsty, I am particularly hungry; Frequent urination-the number of times to pee in the toilet has increased, and the amount of urination has also increased; Weight is also lost for no reason, accompanied by a sense of fatigue that is difficult to relieve.

Please pay attention to your blood sugar level! This may be the typical symptoms of diabetes: drinking more, eating more, urinating more and losing weight.

When blood sugar rises, there will be osmotic diuresis, which will lead to the reduction of water reabsorption by the kidney, and a large amount of water will be discharged from the kidney, thus making the urine volume increase abnormally. Therefore, the body is short of water, and then it feels thirsty and unconsciously wants to drink more water, which further leads to an increase in urine output and a vicious circle.

Diabetes is very common, with 11 patients in every 100 people, and most of them can’t be cured. Once they get it, they need lifelong treatment.

If you want to know your blood sugar health as soon as possible, you can go to the endocrinology department.

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04

sleep apnea syndrome

After waking up in the morning, I often feel that my throat is terribly dry. Don’t ignore it. Looking back, do you still snore when you sleep?

Some people are dry, while others are dry because Lao Zhang snored with his mouth open the night before.

This is not a rap or joke, obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSA), but also a large group of patients with dry mouth.

TA people may snore and snore when they sleep, and their breathing pauses for several seconds before they recover. Classic clinical manifestations also include: feeling suffocated when sleeping, thirsty after waking up, dizziness and headache, drowsiness during the day, and difficulty in concentration …

In contrast, dry mouth is just a minor problem.

Studies have found that it is also related to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases (such as stroke), metabolic diseases and other multi-system damage. The probability of traffic accidents in patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome is 250% higher than that in the general population.

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05

diabetes insipidus

This is a relatively rare disease.

Let’s just say that we ordinary people can’t maintain normal urine output without a substance called "antidiuretic hormone". It is synthesized by the hypothalamus and stored in the pituitary gland, working silently for us.

If this mechanism is obstructed and antidiuretic hormone is deficient, it will fall into a state of "storage failure"; Or the kidney is not sensitive to this hormone, which will make you dry mouth and urinate easily, and may also excrete a lot of innocent urine.

Generally speaking, normal adults excrete about 1 ~ 2 liters of urine a day, that is, 4 ~ 6 times of urine.

If you urinate more than 4 liters in 24 hours and urinate significantly more than 6 times, and this situation lasts for more than half a month, be alert to the possibility of diabetes insipidus.

If you are really worried, you can go to the endocrinology department or nephrology department for treatment.

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To sum up, whether you want to see a doctor about dry mouth mainly depends on whether it lasts for more than 3 months and has affected your daily life.

If so, remember to actively seek medical treatment and check the risk of disease. Don’t delay! Don’t delay! Don’t delay! Say the important things three times.

As for friends who are usually fine and suddenly feel itchy and have a dry mouth when they see here … Don’t panic, I advise you to drink some water first. You may simply drink less water!

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Or, you have thoroughly investigated the possible pathological factors, and still feel dry mouth often, and don’t fall into the "hypochondriac trap". There is also a simple answer: you need to consume more water than others, so don’t worry too much.

Admit that some "problems" are like myopia. Although it is difficult to eradicate, we can still learn to live in peace with them.

This article review expert

references

[1] Yamada Y, Zhang X, Henderson MET, Sagayama H, Pontzer H, et al. Variation in human water turnover associated with environmental and lifestyle factors. Science. 2022 Nov 25; 378(6622):909-915.

Ge Junbo, Xu Yongjian, Wang Chen. Internal Medicine [M]. 9th edition. Beijing: People’s Medical Publishing House, 2018: 829-832.

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Original title: "Often dry mouth, don’t think that there is water shortage! May be a sign of disease "

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