Excessive salivation

I am a 34 year old female and I have the same problem. The only difference is that I have swallowing difficulties too. That makes it 10 times worse! I have to sleep on the couch, practically sitting up so my head is bent forward in order to keep the saliva from running down my throat. I spit constantly. I have a garbage can next to my computer and my bed because it seems like every 2 seconds my mouth is full and I have to spit. When I go to bed at night, I have to have a "Spit Cup" with me. It is so disgusting! I can''t imagine how my boyfriend feels, seeing his girlfriend spitting all the time! I have an appointment with an ENT at the end of the month, but like always, I am assuming that they will tell me that nothing''s wrong! It''s so frustrating, especially when I can''t swallow half the time.. Let me know if you find any solutions!

Ask your doctor if you have Sialorrhea. I am 11 years old and i have Sialorrhea. It is having exessive saliva going through your saliva glands.

I am so sorry that you have this condition. It does make it twice as bad when you have a swallowing problem. My husband puts up with it also because he has been told that it is "normal" for the mouth to clean itself. BS !!! I feel so bad for both of you. If you find out anything let me know also. My husband is 64 years old. So I guess it is not an age related thing either.

I have been reading a lot of conversations throughout this Web site and I have found that this problem has been affecting people of all ages. It is quite embarrassing, especially since I am a student in college right now and lately I have avoided speaking in front of the class because I am afraid that I am either going to slobber all over myself or choke in front of them! It never ends...Thank you for replying and anytime you want to talk about it, I will gladly respond!

Have any of you tried heartburn medication like zantac 150? GERD causes excess saliva and many doctors miss it. It works within an hour. It is worth a try.

Gerdman...no one has ever told us that might be what is causing it. The doctors just keep saying it is normal. Thank you for your response and we will try it.

Helpjoe, I hope it works. I had a similar problem and it worked almost immediatly. GERD is triggered by certain foods, heital hernia and stress. Your poor husband is probably so stressed about his condition that it keeps building on itself. I've found that if a doctor hasn't seen it or had it him/herself they write it off to normal. A lot of doctors are book smart and common sense stupid. Good luck!!!

Thank you so much!!!! I will let you know.

I was in my 50's when all of a sudden my body started producing lots of saliva, non-stop. I use the term "my body" because it felt like something else that was turning against me. Why was it doing this after all these years? It wasn't necessary, so why make my life completely miserable.

This sounds like such a small problem - especially compared to horror stories of major illnesses that you hear about other people going through. But once it happens to you, you realize that your mouth constantly - and I mean constantly - filling up with lots of saliva is an awful, life-changing event.

I saw several doctors about this - both primary care and specialists. I took several kinds of antihistamines, in both pill and nasal-spray form. I went in for allergy shots for months. I bought plastic covers for my mattress and box spring (dust mites). I stopped eating everything new I could think of that I didn't use to eat; stopped them one at a time for weeks at a time in the hopes of zeroing in on the culprit. I took several kinds of heartburn medication. Even had a barium swallow and x-rays to see if there was a problem with a deviated septum.

These attempts took years... and none of them worked. I thought I was destined to spend the rest of my life just swallowing constantly or else gurgling when I talked. And I was devestated about this.

From time to time I would Google "excessive salivation" to see if anything was new. One of those tries mentioned Sal-Tropine. I'm pretty sure I had seen this before, but this was new so I made an appointment with my doctor and he gave me a prescription.

And that afternoon - that very same afternoon - it worked! (This was unlike many, if not all, of the other treatments, where I always had to wait weeks for results. (That never came.) When I saw my doctor about this he explained that it was also given to patients about to receive anesthesia to prevent them from salivating while they were under.

He said that for some reason my body was stuck in some kind of groove where it just produced massive amounts of saliva, and that the trick was to get it back to its old groove by stopping this production for an extended period of time. So I took the pills for a few (3 or 4) months, and when I stopped - lo and behold - my body didn't go back to its old, betraying ways. After several years of constantly producing tons of saliva, I am now back to my old, normal ways.

Hopefully this post will help others. Even if Sal-Tropine doesn't work for you, the point is to keep trying until you find something that does so you can jerk your body out of its bad ways and back into its normal ones. Good luck!

LARRY333
thanks alot for the info. My son is a senior in high school, and all of a sudden he started having a problem with constantly having to swallow. He has had xrays done,and just the other day he had a barium swallow test done. We are still waiting on results from that test. His mouth is constantly filled with saliva which makes him have to swallow every second. This is effecting his senior year,so we are desperatlely looking for answers. It makes him very nervous when he gets around others because when he swallows you can hear it. We are scheduled to see a ent doctor on next week. Maybe I can mention sal-tropine to him. Thanks again.

LARRY333
thanks alot for the info. My son is a senior in high school, and all of a sudden he started having a problem with constantly having to swallow. He has had xrays done,and just the other day he had a barium swallow test done. We are still waiting on results from that test. His mouth is constantly filled with saliva which makes him have to swallow every second. This is effecting his senior year,so we are desperatlely looking for answers. It makes him very nervous when he gets around others because when he swallows you can hear it. We are scheduled to see a ent doctor on next week. Maybe I can mention sal-tropine to him. Thanks again.

I have suffered for years. Some times it goes away, but for the most part I suffer and it drives me nuts. I have trouble getting from minute to minute. Over the years most doctors have little to offer, and some think its all in my head. I have been told I have GERD and my own research tells me that perhaps it is connected to the excess salivation. After so many have told me there is nothing wrong, and I find it alsmost impossible to make it through each day, I tell myself it must be Stress and Anxiety, or perhaps that I get fixatted on the problem. I do everything I can to distract myself to help.

Now I found your comments and was amazed. I,m not the only one out there with excess salivation. I pretty shore a doctor once gave me atropin and tried it for 1 or 2 days and saw no results. I may be mistaken and will pursue this again.

A famous Greek physcian once said,"Listen to your patient, there giving you the diagnosis". Its a shame that most doctors these days fail to listem. If the problem is not common, it seems they write it off.

I appreciate everyones comments. It provides help to hear others advise.

My best wishes to all here, and may we all get better.

I have suffered for years. Some times it goes away, but for the most part I suffer and it drives me nuts. I have trouble getting from minute to minute. Over the years most doctors have little to offer, and some think its all in my head. I have been told I have GERD and my own research tells me that perhaps it is connected to the excess salivation. After so many have told me there is nothing wrong, and I find it alsmost impossible to make it through each day, I tell myself it must be Stress and Anxiety, or perhaps that I get fixatted on the problem. I do everything I can to distract myself to help.

Now I found your comments and was amazed. I,m not the only one out there with excess salivation. I pretty shore a doctor once gave me atropin and tried it for 1 or 2 days and saw no results. I may be mistaken and will pursue this again.

A famous Greek physcian once said,"Listen to your patient, there giving you the diagnosis". Its a shame that most doctors these days fail to listem. If the problem is not common, it seems they write it off.

I appreciate everyones comments. It provides help to hear others advise.

My best wishes to all here, and may we all get better.

I have recently been developing increasing salivation, but it is accompanied with facial pain. My maxilla and even mandible (seems to correlate with where the arterial supplies cross over bony structure). Just wondering if anyone else has this facial fullness/and pain.

It's been awhile since anyone has posted anything. Did anyone get an answer ? I am a woman in my 50's and in the last six months or so, I not only wake up every morning with a slobbered cover pillow, I am afraid to talk with anyone because of all the excess saliva pouring from my mouth! Even if I doze off on the couch sitting up, I wake up with drool on my face and clothes. I don't drink alcohol - and that's what this reminds me of - a drunk person who can't control their body functions ... I have thought maybe it is because I'm getting old and my facial muscles aren't what they use too be. Face lift? Would that stop this? Only problem there -I can't afford a face lift. Does anyone have any answers ??? Please help, I don't know what to do.