I have so much trouble with dry mouth at night. I know I tend to be a mouth breather and even a snorer and I know that makes it worse. I try to sleep on my side rather than my back but it's hard to do that and remain in an upward position because of my peg tube. I keep water at the side of my bed, but drinking water at night makes me cough unless I just take little tiny sips. Does anyone have ideas that have worked for either dry mouth or mouth breathing? I have all the Biotine products and I take Salogen, but they only offer partial relief.

Hi Laurel,

I googled 'stop mouth breathing,' a little fearful that I'd happen upon some weird murdurous cult, but there were a host of sites that came up. They start with advising the usual remedies: humidifier, antihistimines, Breathe Right strips (they worked for me in March-April when allergy season started), chin straps, etc. Many of the sites are geared toward people with sleep apnea and they do go to extremes such as taping the mouth shut. Yikes!

There are some quack-ish sites that come up too, such as one promoting a two-week lip training exercise program. The website looks as if it was designed by a ten year old, a greedy little devil too, BTW. The Chin-Up straps used by sleep apnea folk look to be OK though but I imagine they take some getting used to.

Just glancing through some of the sites, there's a lot of advice people pass on that was given by their dentists - maybe you could check with yours to see if she can guide you to something?

In the meantime, I found this site to be interesting and filled with info. It's for sleep apnea peeps mainly, but you can find lots of mouth breathing info there.

Sleep Problems

I hope this helps. The few short days I had the mouth breathing problem were hideous - my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth once and I had to pull it down! While this may be common for you, it was a little painful for me.

I bought the large Breathe Right strips - my face and nose aren't large but the larger ones adhered better around the nose contours.

Best of luck to you. When you find something that works be sure to share it with everyone.

Mimi

Hey you!
Biotene Gel is fantastic at night! It takes a while to get used to the texture though.
It's thicker than saliva sprays so it lasts.
Also, keep a bottle of spray saliva next to the bed.
My mouth tends to crack if i let it dry too much.
An air humidifier at night also helps alot. I use that if i have a cold especialy.
Give them a try!

yep Laurel, i remember the dry sticky mouth during my radiation treatments. i have a large humidifier and moved it into my bedroom and would turn it on several hours before i retired. my wife bought me some of the mouth grease but i didn't like it and it didn't help much. i would swirl some water around in my mouth but wouldn't drink it at night so i could try and stay asleep. no fun running back and forth to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

i still have a problem with semi-dry mouth. maybe 25% dry and started losing my voice due to the swelling on my vocal cords as a result of the radiation.

i finally decided to try the steroids 10mg (2 tablets every a.m.) & brought my humidifer back out. after 7 days my voice is improving. the doc couldn't say whether or not the swelling would stay down once i stopped the steroids. also because of the humidifer i am sleeping better.

good luck with your mouth.

later, pete

Thanks for all your good ideas. One of the things I've done is to remember to drink lots of water during the day and before I go to bed I use the biotene products. The mint flavor burns a little so I usually have to rinse a bit with water which probably weakens it's effectiveness.
My dentist says there's a procedure that costs 600.00 but doesn't always work well. My dentist gave me some mints called Chewy Mints which seem to me to be effective. They are made in Finland by Fennobon imported by the Lumi line. I chew one if I wake up with a dry mouth. I find if I take small sips of water, it irrigates my mouth better than big sips which make me cough.
One thing that helps is to get my nose as cleaned out as possible with salt water rinses before bed. That seems to help a lot. I also practice nose breathing during the day as a habit to cultivate. Thanks for the great ideas and Mimi, your site info was very entertaining. I can't wait to see the scary stuff.

hello,sounds aweful but i did tape my mouth shut every night for couple of months,i used tape for sensitive skin,i put it on verticaly so i could unhook the bottom lip to spit out phlem bout every hour but it got me through the worst of it , now i dilite oasis mouthwash and spray it in my mouth all night long,iv'e been 2 years tying to get back to some kind of normal,hang in there ,its just a slow process, but you are prolly coming along more then you think....coleen