During a consultation, your doctor will use various techniques in his assesment of the symptom: Drooling. These may include a physical examination or other medical tests. Your doctor may ask several questions when assessing your condition. It is important to remember that your consultation is a two-way process and any extra information you can share with your doctor may help them with their diagnosis.
Some of the questions your doctor may ask are listed below:
Why: Pregnancy causes increased saliva in some women.
Why: may suggest risk of rabies (note: Rabies has never been reported in Australia, New Zealand or Antarctica, but has been in all other continents).
Why: may cause excess salivation.
Why: relevant if considering epiglottitis.
Why: e.g. Bell's palsy may.
Why: e.g. may experience excess salivation if had a recent withdrawal of drugs that can cause dry mouth such as anticholinergics, antihistamines, tricyclic antidepressants.
Why: e.g. Wilson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Epilepsy.
Sometimes, other symptoms may be present and may help your doctor analyse your condition. These may include:
Why: may suggest epiglottitis, rabies.
Why: excess production of saliva is a normal response before the act of vomiting.
Why: Grand mal seizures involve the body first entering a rigid phase, the tongue may be bitten, there is frothing at the mouth and there may be incontinence of urine or feces. This is then followed by a convulsion in which the muscles jerk rhythmically and then the person is drowsy or in a coma for several hours.
Why: usually a child or young adult that presents with tremor, chorea (non- repetitive abrupt involuntary jerky movements), difficulty speaking, difficulty swallowing, drooling, weakness of limbs, fits, mental deterioration.
Why: e.g. headache, tiredness, abnormal behavior, fever, itching at the bite site and then drooling, fear of water and muscle spasms accompanied by profound terror.
Why: e.g. initial upper respiratory tract-like infections, then the child becomes feverish, lethargic and unwell and may complain of sore throat. Then develops difficulty in breathing with a stridor (harsh noise on inspiration) and a muffled voice and cry. Drooling of the saliva is common because the throat is too sore to allow swallowing. Epiglottitis is a medical emergency.
Why: e.g. marked weakness on one side of the face, mouth sags, drooling from the affected side of mouth, loss of taste on front of tongue, eye may water, pain behind the ear.
Why: e.g. impaired memory, impaired judgement and thinking, impaired verbal fluency and impaired ability to perform complex tasks. Personality may change, impulse control may be lost and personal care deteriorates. - may also have drooling of saliva.
Why: e.g. coarse hand tremor most marked at rest, rigidity of limbs, slowness in initiating and executing movements and speech, expressionless mask-like face and dementia - may also have drooling of saliva.
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