Excessive Saliva

Are you being avoided by your friends? Do your friends prefer to talk ceaselessly so as to ensure that you don't contribute to the conversation under any circumstance? Well then, although these signs are not enough to reach a concrete diagnosis, they sure are enough for pointing towards the possibility of you suffering from a condition which leads to the excessive production of saliva, which is also called ptyalism or sialorrhea (yes, there is a medical term for this condition), though not a very grave or serious condition, can often lead to unnervingly embarrassing situations, where you are forced to keep your mouth shut and lie that you've just come back from a very influential Vipassana camp, so as to ensure that the person in front of you isn't forced to take a bath in your oral secretions.

Causes
As mentioned earlier, excessive salivation is not a disease in itself, but is merely a symptom or a manifestation of a disease. This condition could be present right from childhood, or could suddenly crop up later in life. Given below are the causes of it:

• One of the main causes is over-functioning of the salivary glands, which leads to the production of more amount of saliva. This may occur if there is a parotid swelling, or a salivary gland tumor.
• Another condition when there may be excessive salivation, despite normal functioning of the salivary glands, is if the rate of swallowing is below normal. More often than not, the saliva that is produced, is swallowed on a regular basis, which is done at a subconscious level by the body. However, in some diseases, like swollen palate, swollen tonsils, facial paralysis, Bell's palsy etc., there may be excessive saliva present due to the inability of the person to regularly swallow the saliva, as the head and neck muscle functioning is impaired. This is the reason why drooling is often seen in patients of facial paralysis and Bell's palsy.
• There are certain medications that have the side effect of excessive production of saliva. These include medications that are used to treat schizophrenia like clozapine, along with other medications like nitrazepam, risperidone, bethanechol, lithium etc. Also, most cholinergic drugs have an effect of stimulating the glands into producing too much saliva.
• During the initial stages of pregnancy, some women complain of too much saliva in mouth. It is said that this mostly occurs due to the change in hormonal levels. It is especially seen in women who feel nauseated very often during pregnancy.
• Other causes include new dental restorations, new dentures etc.

Symptoms
Well, the symptom is quite obvious - excess saliva! You'll be a walking, talking Sylvester the cat. Your inadvertent mimicry of saying "Suffering succotash!" or "You're desthpicable!" may not exactly go down well with most people, irrespective of whether they are fans of looney toons or not, hence, in such a condition, you will need to take certain treatment measures to curb this symptom.

Treatment
The treatment will mostly depend on the severity and the cause of the problem. If the excessive saliva is due to the intake of drugs that are leading to this condition as a side effect, then it is best to temporarily stop the intake of these drugs, decrease their dosage, or switch to other drugs that do not have this side effect. Excessive salivation during pregnancy differs from person to person and is mostly a transitional problem, that is often curbed naturally after the first trimester. In severe cases, one of the remedies for this problem is to make use of certain drugs, like anticholinergic drugs, though its dosage must be controlled, as it can not only lead to dry mouth, may also cause other untoward systemic changes, if not regulated in its dosage. It is often seen that parents fret, when they see their infant drooling. It is important to note here that infants have a tendency to produce excessive saliva naturally, especially when they are teething, so there is actually no need to fret if you see your child drooling excessively, though you can always consult a dentist just to be on the safe side.

Thus, this is merely a discomforting and embarrassing symptom that one needs to deal with. So, instead of getting distressed over this symptom, look on the bright side - you have lesser chances of caries, which translates into lesser visits to the dentist! And although, people with this symptom will always be wondering why they produce too much saliva, always remember that there are other people around the world, like people suffering from Sjogren's syndrome symptoms, who will be salivating at the thought of excessive production of saliva!