Excessive dry mouth

[Toots1is]

Is it Thryoxine causing this - it only started 3 months ago, and now it is intollerable. Difficulty in swallowing certain foods.

[Clutter]

Toots1is, It may be a blocked saliva gland. Try stimulating saliva by gargling with lemon juice, especially before you eat. You ought to see your GP about it, if it is a blockage, usually caused by a small calcium stone, the gland can become infected and if an abcess develops it will be painful and your face will swell. I've had it a couple of times and thought it was mumps first time. It's extremely difficult to chew and swallow food without saliva, I hope it resolves soon.

The other possibility is Sjogrens, an autoimmune disease which is fairly common in autoimmune thyroid patients. It usually causes dry mouth, dry nasal passages and dry eyes. It needs checking out as it can affect other organs.

[Toots1is in reply to Clutter]

Thanks Clutter will folow that up. Toots1is

[Dragonmum in reply to Toots1is]

Mine's gone too - in short, get another opinion and pack in the fags!

[wadhamk]

i suffer with this problem if i have sugar free Aspartame

[Owen1]

Hi Toots1is.

Everyone is different, but I can categorically say that Levothyroxine CAN cause dry mouth syndrome, along with all sorts of other ailments - as it did for me. I started out with exactly the same thing and this eventually led to constant mouth ulcers and all sorts of other very strange side effects, including systemic inflammation and pruritus. I spoke to my GP and was told that it was impossible and that levothyroxine is "identical" to the T4 that your body produces - as I'm sure many people on here will also tell you.

I was back and forth from the hospital and dentist to try and find underlying causes, all the time being told that it was impossible for it to be the levothyroxine and must be something else. In my case however, reducing the dose by just 25ug - a decision I made myself - reduced the symptoms over the course of a few weeks to a tolerable level, but made me feel exhausted and increasing the dose made the symptoms return - this was something that I experimented with 3 times over a year, with the same results each time. This was not some subjective, psychological effect as I can't bring my mouth out in ulcers, or have sore patches on my skin just by thinking about it (no matter how hard I try), nor increase my IgA.

I eventually saw a private endocrinologist and he wasn't even surprised, telling me that around 10% of patients he has seen have a poor tolerance to levothyroxine and around half of those have allergy type symptoms - although he did think I was more allergic than most, although not the worst he had seen. I no longer take synthetic levothyroxine and the dryness, mouth ulcers and pruritus have all completely gone.

Sadly in my case the inflammatory response resulted in other side effects that probably won't resolve, but I have to hope that they will in time.

My advice is to see your GP and insist that there may be a relationship. What you then do is difficult to say, but maybe it might be worth trying a reduced dose for a few weeks to see if it helps, or perhaps you could try a different brand or maybe even look to some of the non-synthetic alternatives.

Good luck.