Question: Hello Doctor. Hope this finds you well. Greetings from Helsinki. I am Christian, male age 44. I would like to consult with you about an issue: Dry mouth, dry tongue and dry throat. So pritty much all connected. Early July this year I had very stressful work and personal life. Which really ran me down. Poor sleep and very high anxiety.

A symptom I had never had before emerged. The tip of my tongue became sore. So i noticed a bit of mouth drying. I also had a very sore tongue for a couple of days. Almost like i had eaten glass. Or pins and needles. This pritty much escalated through-out the summer. I became very fixated on it. Felt like i was very very thirsty. But it developed into a bit of a health anxiety issue. Pritty much day and night. Nights and in the morning was especially bad and dry after sleeping. So this woke me up a lot in the night time. Just thought about it all the time and became very depressed and stressed about this. I have visited a dentist twice about this and she did not find anything out of the ordinary. She put it down to stress that i have had little saliva flow. Dentist said i should continue to chew and work to stimulate more saliva flow. I also went to a doctor who took diabetes and thyroid tests and these came out ok. So no worries there. About 2 weeks ago still after having very strong continued anxiety i started to relax more. I noticed in doing so that i was having more and more saliva. So it is safe to say that stress really can have an effect on saliva flow. Things have gotten better but this issue still is not resolved. I notice when i speak that my tongue gets sore just because i have more saliva now but not quite enough. So speaking seems to dry my mouth out. Throat has also been especially dry last few days.

Basically my question is. If a person has had bad anxiety + stress for an extended period. I understand dry mouth is one symptom that can come of it. How long can a person possibly expect things to return to normal? Maybe hard to answer but I think i really burned myself out. High anxiety, poor sleep and depressed. I am slowly feeling better but still a bit concerned about this mouth dryness. Do you see this as something that can take a while? I have been drinking lots + with lemon to help stimulate saliva as well as chewing zylitol gum. Worst part now is perhaps when i speak. My tongue gets sore due to lack of saliva. So its tougher being at work. Would just like to put my mind at ease. I have done a lot of reading on the internet about anxiety and dry mouth connection.

I have also just gone for an Iron test and b12 vitamin test over the weekend and expect to get results mid week this week. I dont think i have ever been deficient in anything so somehow i dont think this is the issue. I am also taking for hypertention Candesartan medication which apparently according to doctor i have seen should not be causing dry mouth. Otherwise i'm not taking any other medications. I do not smoke, nor do i drink hardly at all. Just very stressed and scared at this point and I can't imagine how much worse its making this. I do fear this might be Sjögrens. Just not sure if i have all the symptoms for that. No swelling or anything like that with glands. No problems with eyes. So the only pain really is tongue ( due to dryness) and dry lips and uncomfortable dry throat.

I thank you for your time doctor.

Christian

Thank you kindly for your reply Doctor. Might be yes I need to visit a proper ENT here in Finland. As you say to rule this out. I have a suspicion this could be stress / anxiety related but simply unsure. Can in your experience stress and anxiety cause these kinds of symptoms? Thank you!