I love it when weird medical stuff happens to me and my first thought is, “Man, this is going to be good content for the blog.”
I’m in serious pain right now from what is one of THE most bizarre medical things that has ever happened to me: I have an infected salivary gland in my right cheek.
If you didn’t know we have salivary glands in our cheeks, you’re not the only one. I thought our salivary glands all lived under our tongue, but as it turns out, that’s just the minor ones. The big guys are actually in our cheek and jaw – who knew!
Anyway. You don’t ever want an inflamed or infected salivary gland, trust me. It ranges from uncomfortable to OMG WHAT ELECTRIC NERVE TORTURE IS THIS. Not good times.
That day started out like any other. I woke up, brushed my teeth, showered and got dressed for work. I noticed some slight tenderness in the right side of my jaw when I washed my face and put makeup on. “Hmmm, that’s odd,” I thought to myself – but it didn’t really hurt much more than a subterranean pimple, so I blew it off.
Then, right after I took a bite of my breakfast, I felt a weird salivary gland explosion in my right cheek – you know, like when you taste something super sour or tasty and you start gushing saliva? And simultaneously, I felt searing, electrical agony shoot down my right cheek and jaw under my right ear. It wasn’t biting or chewing my food that caused me pain – it was TASTING it. It was the oddest thing.
I took some time to feel along the outside of my cheek and jaw, and noticed that it was swollen and a little warm to the touch on the right side. The pain gradually dissipated to light soreness as long as I didn’t eat or drink anything other than water – but if I tried to eat or taste anything, it shot right back up to a 10.
I did a little googling, then made an appointment with my dentist to get checked out later that day. In the meantime, I met up with a friend, hoping for the best. Once again, I took one bite of food and tears squirted from my eyes as searing agony shot through my jaw. My bestie said my whole face turned red from the pain! It felt HORRIBLE.
I finally made it to the dentist and that’s when things got even weirder. My dentist knew what my problem was right away, because she said my salivary gland was literally visibly inflamed as soon as I opened my mouth. She then massaged my cheek a bit and said she was “milking” out some fluid that was slightly thicker than saliva but not quite pus. This did not hurt, but it was disgusting – or as they say in French, degoutant!
The dentist prescribed heavy-duty antibiotics, told me to keep massaging my cheek and “milking” the gland, suggested gargling with salt water and recommended that I eat super sour candies to get the saliva gland going. She also said that instead of avoiding food, as I had done all day, I needed to push through the pain and eat so I could to encourage the gland to produce as much fluid as possible and flush things through.
This was definitely the first time a medical or dental professional has ever given me free license to eat sour lemon warheads and sour patch kids!
Thankfully, my dentist gave me great advice and things started to feel better almost immediately. I still don’t know how or why I ended up with a salivary gland infection, because I am healthy, don’t smoke, drink a ton of water and take great care of my teeth, but these things are apparently more common after age 50. Oh joy.
If you’re wondering how to keep your salivary glands nice and healthy, the following is recommended:
- Stay hydrated
- Have good oral hygiene
- Don’t smoke
- Avoid having a dry mouth: drool is our friend.
Add this salivary gland issue to the list of bizarre things I never thought I’d experience – and hopefully never will again.
Have you had any obscure or oddball medical experiences lately? You know I’d love to hear about ’em. In the meantime, keep drooling, baby!
