Inexplicable gum pain? Besides teeth and gums, there are actually many glands in the mouth, including parotid gland, sublingual gland and submandibular gland. Salivary glands are hidden under the muscles, although they are not visible from the outside. Sometimes they are considered as pain caused by diseases of teeth and gums, and they are inflammation of salivary glands.
There are many reasons for salivary gland inflammation, which may be that the salivary gland pipeline is blocked, which leads to saliva not flowing out smoothly, causing inflammation of redness, swelling and heat pain, or that the salivary gland itself is infected by foreign bacteria and viruses, such as viral mumps common in children; However, salivary gland inflammation caused by bacteria or viruses is mostly acute and can quickly return to normal function. If it is chronic salivary gland inflammation, it may last for more than a week like a small flower, and the pain will wake up at night.
There may be four reasons for chronic sialadenitis, namely salivary gland stenosis, salivary gland stones, salivary gland cysts or tumors, or other immune diseases such as Sjogren's syndrome and sequelae of radiotherapy for head and neck tumors. Salivary gland stenosis and calculus are the most common, and they also affect each other.
How to treat sialadenitis Because there is no way to see salivary glands in appearance, ultrasound will be used for first-line examination. If you really can't find the cause, or you can't confirm the location of stenosis and stones, you can use X-rays and computed tomography. If you want to be more accurate, you can use the endoscope of salivary gland. Nowadays, minimally invasive surgery technology can also use endoscope to remove stones, or put stents to open narrow pipes.
However, first-line treatment usually does not begin with surgery, just like kidney calculi and urinary calculi. A large part of the causes of salivary gland stones or strictures also come from "drinking too little water", which leads to the deposition of metal ions in the water in the pipeline, thus producing stones. Then there is the habit of smoking and chewing betel nut, which leads to the continuous suffering of oral mucosa and the formation of salivary gland stenosis.
When do you suspect that you have salivary gland inflammation, gum pain lasts for more than 65,438+0 weeks, and you have the habit of smoking and chewing betel nut when you are over 35 years old. Your daily intake of water (purified water) is less than 65,438+0,000, and your cheeks, chin and tongue are obviously swollen everywhere, so you feel pain. Therefore, the first step in the choice of treatment is to quit smoking and betel nut. Then, regulate yourself to drink more than 2,000 water every day, and moderately * * * cheeks to help the stones to be discharged, and the pipes are no longer narrow. If there is bacterial infection, then cooperate with antibiotic treatment. Usually, patients will improve significantly within 1~2 days, so surgery is not needed. Unless there is still pain after 3 or 4 days, invasive treatment should be performed.
In addition to helping to digest food and keep the mouth moist, saliva also contains many antibodies to protect the health of teeth and gums. Therefore, if salivation is not serious, I think it can be left untreated, and it may be complicated with tooth decay, which will be more troublesome to deal with at that time. Therefore, if your toothache can't be cured for a long time, you can consider going to the otolaryngology department for an ultrasonic examination to confirm whether there is something wrong with the salivary glands.