OK so call me crazy but I go to bed every night with a sugarless cherry cough drop and it works...I always worry about choking in the night but I haven't. I wake up with it stuck to the top of my mouth from not enough moisture but in helps me. I won't tell you a glass of water because you are probably tired of being tod "to drink more",

That's interesting. I told my wife about your response and she said that she does that all the time when she has a sore throat. I never even knew she did that! She said that when she wakes up in the morning only a very tiny piece is left. But I'm a little nervous about trying this. Shortly before my Sjogren's diagnosis I ended up in the ER with a large pill stuck in my throat. I could breath through my nose but had some trouble breathing through my mouth. The ER doctor suggested I get my throat checked out since he said I shouldn't have had so much trouble getting it down. Of course the Sjogren's diagnosis followed shortly afterwards. Before this I did have a couple of other instances of choking on pills but was always able to eventually get them to go down. Incidently, water doesn't seem to help me at all. In fact I have read that drinking too much water can actually make things worse since it washes away any saliva that you do have. Thanks for the advice. Maybe I'll try it with something softer than a hard cough drop.

I have to add my 2 cents on this one. I use oxygen at night with a canula (not CPAP) and in the winter, even with the humidifier bottle on the concentrator and a humidifier running in the room, my throat and lungs are unbearable. I was told by my respiratory tech that using vaseline around my nose and on my lips could actually become aerosolized and end up in my lungs causing "gram negative pneumonia" (that's the kind that has no cure). Needless to say if vaseline is a no-no, I'm pretty sure that a cough drop or anything in your mouth while you're sleeping could end in choking to death or dying of pneumonia. I have posted this question before, basically there is no answer that is safe. Do I use my oxygen faithfully, no. There are nights that it is too painful and I've been told that brain cells are dying from lack of oxygen. So I guess I'll leave this life with dementia. I have no answer. I'm sorry we have to live with this.

Thanks for letting me know about the pneumonia. I had it once and don't ever want it again. With my history of choking on pills, I think you are correct that anythng in my mouth while sleeping would be dangerous. I guess you are right - there isn't really a good solution. Maybe that's why dry eye and dry mouth solutions are frequently addressed but not dry throat. I'm sorry you are having so much trouble. Thanks for the input.

Sam,

I use a biotene spray it sits on my bed post. I probably use it as needed when I wake up dry like you describe. Another trick I use is a nose strip that keeps your airway open so you don't breath as heavily through your mouth.
Mouth breathers W/SjS is torment. You could probably also try a oramoist tab or salese.
Both last a lot longer than a lozenge.
That or a water bottle bedside

Tom - I hadn't heard of the oramoist tab or the salese before. I'm going to try them. Thanks.

http://www.biotene.com/products/obspray.aspx

This is what works best for me. Expensive but it has the enzymes needed to replace your saliva's protective film. I've tried several others too. This one tastes the best to me.

Walmart - Target both, at least locally , stopped carrying it , so pharmacy's are the best bet.

My ENT said to suck on sugar free lemon drops. I go to bed every night with one in my mouth and it does help. Anything sour will help get the juices flowing.

Tom - I've never noticed the Biotene Spray before. I have tried the Biotene Oral Balance Liquid but didn't like it. I comes out like a thick milky substance that tastes pretty gross to me. So I will look for the spray.

Mzkimmy - I'm still worried about the choking issue at night but I will try the lemon drops during the day.

Thanks to you both.

I was at the pharmacy the other day to buy the Biotene Spray because Walmart doesn't carry it here, even though they have the toothpaste, rinse and the gum (it isn't too bad, though expensive). I ended up buying the nasty drops AGAIN! thinking that was the product. I looked at this post again and found the link for the mouth spray and printed it. I will call Walmart to see if they can order it. Now I'm stuck with this nasty pearly crud! Have you ever looked up Sjogren's Foundation? They have a wonderful newsletterr called "The Moisture Seekers" but they accept advertising but I've gone broke buying the stuff they advertise. It seems there is always a snake oil peddler ready the separate the chronically ill from their hard earned cash. Thanks for putting up with the rant. I shudder to think of people going to bed with a lozenge in their mouth, guess you could say "choking to death " could be another end result of Sjogren's. Just my opinion, it's 5 AM and I just woke up with my eyeballs screaming and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Because of overdoing it on Friday, the pain kept me awake until 3 AM. I generally have nothing nice to say when I have only had 2 hours sleep! Still waiting for that magic wand or even some magic fairy dust...

Yes, when I bought that gross white liquid I thought I was getting a spray. I think the packaging is misleading. I too printed out the link that Tom provided for the spray so that I won't get them confused this time. I haven't joined the foundation yet but have been meaning to. Everyone seems to think it has a lot of good info. I'm with you about the dangers of going to bed with a lozenge in your mouth. I passed the warning on to my wife about this but she is ignoring my advice as usual.

Trust me here Walmart stopped carrying it, Target also stopped carrying it. Don't bother calling. I've used it for years and Walmart was the cheapest.
Drug stores are the only resource. Which sucks because they are by far the most expensive. If you have a regular pharmacy ask for a discount, I get 15% at my local pharmacy. Adds up when you use as much as me.


Yes, the other brand is milky , awful tasting and useless. Biotene also has a weird taste but you get used to it. It also has two uses. If you know anyone with a dry cough tell them about it, it's UNREAL how well it works for dry hacks.
My wife had a bad cold last winter she could stop coughing, made her try the spray - so I could sleep-lol- and her cough stopped instantly!

I started taking 1 teaspoon of mineral oil at bedtime, but be careful there are two types of mineral oil...one is for internal use and one is for external use. Of course you take the internal one. It tends to coat your throat and it feel sooo much better. I hope this works for others.

i use at night what i use in the day: artificially flavoured mints ("eclipse mints"), but at night i have 3 in my mouth as opposed to the normal 1. two mints at each rear corner of the mouth and 1 at the front. each time i wake i reload my mouth with another 3. try to avoid sleeping on your back or front. i rarely get an attack of dry throat doing this, and if i do i put half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper in one cup of hot water, stir, then sip/gargle/spit. sounds horrible, i know, but it really gets the mucous flowing (so the nose will run too). then i spend about 1hr using mints/oral gel to get things the way they should be. remember that saliva flows 2-3 times as well when you're standing, that's why i need the 3 mints which last longer than in daytime and stimulate enough saliva while asleep. try to sleep the same amount of time on each side so that both sides of the throat see some saliva.

I'm surpirsed so many people here can suck on hard candy or drops, though it sounds like the drops don't melt all the way down for many of you. If I try to suck on any kind of drop the darn thing won't melt at ALL, and then I get a blister where it ends up stuck to the inside of the mouth. I'm also afraid the hard candy/mint would further rot my teeth (even surgarless stuff can rot your teeth when you have no protective saliva). Hard candy is a totall no-no for me, and I too have a heck of a time swallowing pills. Can't say I found those Biotene products helpful either, but if they work for you, go for it.

Sam, while I've never taken Evoxac, I do take salagen. I understand what you mean about the sweating...omg, I'd soak through all the layers of my clothes and have sweat dripping off the end of my nose. At one point I started to carry clean, dry underware in my purse so I could change out of the sopping wet ones...truly awful. However nothing restores moisture like those pills, and my answer was to take 1/4 to 1/2 pill every 1-2 hours. It's a pain in the butt to be taking all those pills, but that way I get the benefits of having extra saliva *without* sweating rivers. Small frequent doses of the pills has really helped decrease the pain in my mouth/throat and has eliminated the side effects.

There are some other interesting suggestions here that I may try. The mineral oil sounds like it could work, but I wonder if that gives a laxative effect?