Wednesday, March 27, 2024

What Causes Salivary Gland Diseases And Disorders?

Salivary glands work to produce saliva that keeps your mouth moist. It also helps to protect your teeth from damage and rapid decay. Saliva is helpful in digesting food. The size of the salivary glands is small. They are present around your mouth’s inner lining.

Moreover, salivary glands are present around the inner lining of your cheeks and lips. Many diseases can disrupt the working of your salivary glands. These diseases can be tumors of cancer and Sjogren’s syndrome.

It is possible to treat some conditions using antibiotics. However, some states require serious treatments like surgery, so it is essential to consult your doctor in the start to treat underlying health conditions.

Causes

Three paired salivary glands are present in you that are known as parotid, sublingual and submandibular glands. The function of these glands is the production of saliva. 

Familiar sources of issues are the blocked salivary glands. These blocked salivary glands are involved in causing painful symptoms.

Sialolithiasis And Sialadentis

These two conditions can appear in your salivary glands. When stones made up of calcium start forming in the area of salivary glands, sialolithiasis can occur. These stones work to block glands. It can temporarily or entirely stop the saliva flow.

Sialadenitis refers to the infection that involves your salivary gland. A stone that blocks your gland can cause this infection. Strep bacteria can lead to this infection. Other infants and adults can also suffer from this condition.

Sjogren’s Syndrome

It is a common disorder of salivary glands. It appears when your white blood cells start targeting moisture-producing glands. These are healthy cells. The glands that are being targeted can be oil, salivary, and sweat glands.

This condition commonly affects females with certain autoimmune disorders like lupus. If you have such symptoms, consult your doctor immediately to plan better treatment for you timely. It helps you to be protected from getting further complications.

Viruses

Viruses can also affect your salivary glands. These viruses can be mumps, flu virus, cytomegalovirus, Coxsackievirus, and echovirus. Make an appointment with the doctor if you think you have some viruses in the body that impact salivary glands’ functions.

Tumors

Both cancerous and noncancerous tumors are involved in impacting your salivary glands. These tumors can develop in the area of salivary glands. However, the conditions in which tumors start growing in your salivary glands are infrequent.

According to Cedars-Sinai, this condition can appear in people whose ages range between 50 to 60 years. Non Cancerous tumors work to affect parotid glands. These tumors are Warthin and pleomorphic adenomas tumors. 

Symptoms

Symptoms of sialolithiasis include pain that can enhance when you eat something. Its symptom is also the appearance of a painful lump under the area of your tongue. The symptoms of Sialadenitis include intense pus and swelling in the area of your chin and cheek.

The pus starts draining in your mouth, and you may have a fever. Sometimes cysts start growing in the area of your salivary glands. These cysts can cause problems in swallowing, eating, and speaking. A yellow mucus starts draining after the bursting of a cyst.

Some viral infections like mumps can induce particular symptoms in people: headache, fever, joint pain, muscle aches, and face swelling. Sjogren’s syndrome also causes symptoms in people: tooth decay, dry mouth, dry cough, dry eyes, and fatigue that can be unexplained.

People with this syndrome can also have swelling salivary glands and sores in the area of the mouth. In addition, they can get frequent infections of the salivary glands. In addition, you may get swelling in the area of salivary glands if you have alcoholism or diabetes.

See your healthcare professional get timely and effective treatment if you have such symptoms. For example, people with the issues of salivary glands can have dry mouth, problems in opening the mouth, bad taste, mouth pain, and facial swelling.

Treatment

Treatment is associated with the type of disease and its advancement. For example, your doctor may advise you to undergo surgery if you have a mass in the areas of salivary glands. In surgery, doctors remove that mass or the gland.  

You may further need radiation treatment if the mass is cancerous. Radiations kill the cancerous cells. Be patient while taking such medicines because your body takes time to heal. 

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