Hello all,
I have been interested in this forum for some time now and wanted to share my experience and get your thoughts on what my concerns could be.
Gender: Male
Age :21
Ethnicity: Indian (SE Asian)
Smoking: No
Back in December (about 3 months ago) I had an episode of extreme dry mouth that lasted about 10 days.
The onset was about 2 days of feeling as though my mouth was drying out, not necessarily gradual worsening, then bam out of nowhere - almost
complete inability to produce saliva.On many of those 10 days I was unable to produce any saliva which dried out my throat and made it painful to sleep/swallow, I could not produce enough to eat, had drying lips, etc.,
It was dry mouth with no other symptoms - markedly, I did not feel dry eyes.
I saw two dentists, both who said that there was a small amount of saliva production when stimulated despite dryness and no swelling of the glands so that I should just wait it out.
I saw a physician who said it could be lingering effects of stress/viral infection and that I should increase my water intake and wait it out.
A few days later I was fine but I had developed a possibly unrelated jaw pain that I thought may have been TMJ but subsided.
That subsided in two weeks and then I was "back to normal", as far as I could tell.
Tuesday of last week I saw the symptoms come back when I thought they had gone away.
The symptoms weren't as severe as last time until suddenly last night it began to worsen.
Now I'm wondering if it was simply a much longer time of onset...
Reasons I believe I could have Sjorgen's
- Dry mouth symptoms
Possible involvement of dry nose
Immediate blood relative has auto immune disorder - sister has Vitiligo
Could have been predicated by topical immiquimod disease
Insidious nature of disease may mean these are just early warnings
Others have shown that the symptoms can come and go and are highly personalized so fact that I don't have dry eyes may mean nothing
Reasons I could not have Sjorgen's? Lot of other reasons, supposedly, that are bengin and better explain dry mouth only conditions
? Any suspicions of nasal symptoms or ocular symptoms are likely just confirmation bias
? Not likely to have based upon typical age group, gender, or ethnicity
? No inflammation of glands; does not improve with NSAID use and not palpable
? No ocular involvement
? Seems like it should be chronic, my symptoms are both acute and intermittent
? Could be due to seasonal changes
I have a lingering suspicion that this may all just be related to my impacted wisdom teeth but that's perhaps more hopeful than anything.
Let me know what you guys think.
Do you think you were well hydrated? Dehydration causes dry mouth.
Did you eat pine nuts or some other food you usually don't eat?
Seasonal allergy? Aka allergy to pollens?
Dry mouth, intermittent, is too general to be considered a symptom of early onset Sjogren's, in my (non-medical) opinion.
Just keep on with your life and time will tell.
Hugs, Elaine
Bartolo, I do have seasonal allergies to pollen but I've never experienced dry mouth until these two incidents.
Thank you Carolina. I am afraid now even if it is not Sjogren's because it has only been worsening each day, slowly but worsening, since onset of symptoms last week.