Drooling is saliva flowing outside the mouth purposely. It happens when underdeveloped muscles around the mouth or have too extensive saliva.
Some people with difficult drooling problems are at increased trouble breathing saliva, nutrition, or liquids into the lungs. This may result in harm if there is a problem.
This saliva performs the significant task of keeping your mouth and throat slicked. Some drooling in babies and toddlers is normal.
Drooling in babies and young children may bring toxic colds and allergies. Drooling may arise if your body makes too much saliva. It also occurs when infants are teething.
Saliva production is a natural and significant part of good oral health. There are several techniques you can begin to stop drooling in your sleep, from lifestyle modifications to speech therapy, treatment, and surgery.
Some medications are modest, while others are only suggested for more serious cases of drooling.
What Are The Causes Of Drooling In Your Sleep?
Drooling while sleeping can be traced to many causes, from your sleeping position to your age, allergies, and side effects.
Drooling is also caused by nervous system unhealthy disorders that cause difficulty in swallowing. Here are some reasons for the common side effects of drooling in your sleep.
Age
Drooling is common for infants developing their swallowing muscles; older adults may also learn they start to drool more as they age.
Drooling also occurs when infants are teething and is prone to infants. They can not yet regulate their facial muscles, so saliva breaks their mouths by day and night.
Side Effects Of Medication
Some medications affect drugs used to cause sleep and decrease pain. Drugs utilized for eye checkups in children or mothers of breastfed infants can cause raised saliva production.
Heavy metal poisoning can moreover affect hypersalivation, affecting drooling in babies.
Stress
Stress causes excessive salivation—unfortunately, that says smelly drooling all over your face and pillow.
Also, stress reduces your sleep quality, making you drool just more. Your doctor may advise a special medication to address the problem.
Sleep Disorders
Drooling is a known sign in those suffering from sleep anxieties or sleep disorders like sleep apnea, sleepwalking, and sleep talking.
Sometimes, the treatments to equalize these conditions can also cause expanded saliva production.
Blocked Sinuses
If your sinuses are blocked, either from a cold or other infection, you may find that nasal congestion directs to drooling more than conventional.
You may drool more often if you regularly have blocked sinus passages or a thinner-than-normal sinus.
These sinus disorders make you more inclined to breathe through your mouth while sleeping, which may cause other drools to stream outside your mouth.
Teething
Drooling is a very common side effect of teething in infants. When your baby is teething, they are always chewing on their hands or a teether.
As an effect, the saliva from the scoop of their mouth will drip down the sides of their skin. Into the crumples of their neck, sometimes just down to their chest.
The Cause Of Drooling In Older Adults
The inability to control saliva may be due to weakness in the mouth's muscles. In addition, people who might have chronic nasal congestion may also experience drooling.
The Cause Of Drooling In Babies
Babies are very vulnerable to drooling, and when they are a little older, they do not have complete control over the muscles in their mouths.
Drooling also occurs when babies are teething. Sometimes drooling does not require treatment in babies; for example, most people consider drooling to be normal.
What Are The Symptoms Of Drooling In Your Sleep?
Drooling can be the finding of too much saliva, the incapacity to swallow effectively, or the incapability to avoid the mouth and lips. These symptoms can have several concerns to stopping drooling.
Chapped Lips Or Skin
Excessive drooling can affect a rash around the mouth, lips, cheeks, chin, and neck area due to the excess bacteria on the skin from the saliva.
Begin to keep the site as neat and as dry as possible by sometimes washing the area. Assigning a simple barrier lotion can help with dry, broken, sore skin and lips.
Difficulty Eating Or Drinking
Difficulty in eating and drinking, painful swallowing, and heartburn are commonly related to drooling problems, which affect the muscles of your stomach, which leads to drooling.
All of these health issues will always result in a loss of control of facial or oral muscles, which can develop problems in swallowing. You can refer to postural changes to enhance your ability to eat.
Tongue Thrusting
One of the most prominent symptoms is tongue thrusting. It can happen at night—still, it's most apparent when it appears during the day. You may drool for no seeming purpose.
A few treatments can also benefit from decreasing the amount of saliva produced. Drooling develops various adverse effects for patients and their guardians. The lack of lubrication can occur in a sore or tongue thrusting, making talking and eating uneasy.
Bad breath
Saliva is a natural impediment to bad breath because it rinses bacteria. But many people suffer from dry mouth, which sounds very poor. Sometimes bad breath is a direct effect of gum disease.
If you take a prescription that has decreased salivary flow as a side effect, you must be diligent in restoring the saliva with more liquids. Prepare a point to drink water regularly throughout the day to stop drooling.
5 Tips To Stop Drooling In Your Sleep
There are specific things you may do to treat and prevent drooling. Here are 5 best tips to stop drooling in your sleep.
1.Change Your Sleeping Position
The simplest way to stop drooling is by changing your sleeping position to resting on your back. Instead of sleeping on your stomach, begin sleeping on your back.
This way, you will control your jaws, and the saliva won't trickle down your face. As your body generates saliva, the fluid is more likely to exit from the front or the side of your mouth when it sits facing down due to sheer gravity.
So sleeping on your back in bed is a quick way to resolve the problem. However, the feeling of sleeping on your back may not sound apparent.
If you don't need to shift your sleeping habits, you may evaluate something like a wedge pillow that expands your mouth and permits gravity to do its task.
Drooling is also affected by gravity, and the way and posture that we sleep can affect or prevent excessive saliva build-up. You'll automatically drool less if you can easily train yourself to sleep on your backside, not on your stomach.
2.Raise Your Head Position
A stomach or a side sleeper may find an easy way to fix drooling while asleep and switch to sleeping on your back.
The good logic behind switching out to back sleeping can be traced directly to the laws of gravity since the drool comes out when you are angled downward. Propping your head up can help minimize the chances of drooling in your sleep.
Finding the right pillow for a new sleeping position is the easiest way to ease your transition.
Staying hydrated can help you reduce the excess saliva production that causes drooling in your sleep if you have problems during sleep, especially if these are related to other sleep conditions.
3.Drink Enough Water During the Day
Staying hydrated can help lower the excess saliva production of drooling in your sleep. You should drink 8 to 9 glasses of water during the day to stay hydrated, but you'll also need to drink some water before going to bed to relieve your nighttime thirst.
Drooling may be a physical disorder that results from it, and it can be a side effect of some drugs, any disease condition, or medicine that weakens muscles, produces excessive saliva, or makes swallowing difficult can cause drooling.
Before sleeping out at night, drinking a glass of water and chewing on a lemon wedge will help eliminate drooling.
Make sure you sleep on your back and avoid the accumulation of saliva in your mouth. Take steam before going to bed to open a stuffy nose; it will help you breathe easily through your nose instead of your mouth, which will be unhealthy and prevent drooling.
4.Think About Getting A Mouthguard
One of the best and easiest lines of defense against drooling with a night guard is to get a custom mouthguard.
During the first few days of the week or month, your night guard may feel very uncomfortable because you are not using or wearing it.
Your drooling might improve as you get used to your mother's guard. It is incredibly important to continue to use your mother's guard.
If you feel major side effects like teeth feeling weird after wearing out night guard, speak to your dentist or specialist about proceeding.
At-home remedies like hypoallergenic mattresses, bedsheets, air purifiers, and minimizing pets can easily help clear allergic symptoms that could be causing an excess amount of drooling at night.
The appliance benefits better posture of your tongue and fosters enhanced lip closure.
5.Allergies And Medication
Allergies
Another common and simplest culprit of drooling in your sleep is one of the biggest annual irritations - allergies.
Since stuffy noses mostly lead to mouth breathing, allergies can increase the likelihood of drooling in your sleep, so your unhealthy allergies are a potential cause of nighttime saliva situations.
According to some research and experts, you should try these ideas.
- Keep your pets out of your bed
- Use an air purifier
- Use hypo-allergic sheets
Allergies in which the body may produce extra saliva to remove the irritant and assist it to get better faster.
When your nose is congested, you'll naturally inhale through your mouth as you sleep, which can shortly lead to drooling.
If you're dealing with any allergies or sinus issues, take the appropriate medication to wear a nose streak to bed. Your doctor can help with allergies by prescribing the respective medications to treat them.
Medication
The medication for drooling depends on the specific disease and determining the base cause. All medicines come paired with some side effects. Undue saliva production may be one of them. If this is the motive for your mouth watering, do not avoid any treatments before discussing them with your doctor. Sometimes, certain medications can raise the amount of saliva your body develops.
The benefit of speech therapy is that it enables you to close your mouth properly when you sleep.
When You Should See Your Doctor?
If the therapy or treatment cannot give relief, you should assess a higher level of treatment. Drooling in your sleep is extremely common.
They can evaluate whether your drooling could be a symptom of an underlying health disorder and provide personalized suggestions on stopping drool during sleep.
There are many kinds of helpful treatment options available to help you resolve their drooling issue and any discomfort, and it may be causing problems. Since drooling can be a sign of or lead to complications, it is important to settle it as soon as possible.
FAQs
Now that you know all about the tips to stop drooling in your sleep, let’s take a look at a few frequently asked questions.
What Treatment Options Does One Have To Treat Drooling?
Many helpful treatment options are available to help you resolve their drooling issue and any discomfort, and it may be causing problems. Some common ones are medications, motor therapy and oral appliance therapy.
Is It Worth Seeing A Doctor For Drooling?
Since drooling can signify or lead to complications, it is important to settle it as soon as possible.
Wrap Up!
Drooling during sleep is common and may not signify a health problem. If your drooling is benign, it could indicate something to be checked by a good specialist. Also, health and lifestyle modification changes like sleeping with the phone and the medical history of the person suffering play vital roles in choosing whether the degree of drooling is worrying.
So it is important to seek treatment. Depending on the stringency of the situation, drooling can have adverse medical and psychosocial impacts if left untreated. Furthermore, if you’re interested in reading more about sleep disorders, and health problems like drooling that may be affecting your sleep, then you’ve come to the right place. Our experts at Crafted Beds have curated the best sleep health blogs to help you get the sleep you deserve. So head over to our website and get your good night’s sleep!
