The Best Dry Mouth Treatment, Depending on the Cause

Having a dry mouth makes it uncomfortable to do basic things like breathe, speak, and swallow. Kind of important stuff. The good news is that the best dry mouth treatment for you is out there—and you can try a few, depending on what’s causing you to feel so parched in the first place. “Dry mouth, or xerostomia, affects about one in five people,” Jessie Han, DDS, dental clinical site director at Flatbush Family Health Center at NYU Langone, tells SELF. While sometimes it’s fleeting—caused by regular ol’ dehydration or some mouth-breathing when you’ve got a stuffy nose—other times it can be chronic. And when it lingers, dry mouth can actually cause some downstream effects. “Not only does it feel plain uncomfortable or unpleasant to have a dry mouth, but it negatively affects your health,” Michael Lerner, MD, ear, nose, and throat specialist at Yale Medicine and assistant professor of surgery at Yale School of Medicine, tells SELF. If untreated, Dr. Lerner adds, it can lead to oral hea…