harperb

In June of this year, I had an upper endoscopy and was diagnosed with a small hiatal hernia and mild gastritis. The gastroenterologist put me on Dexilant but that made me really bloated and I couldn't digest my food, so I stopped taking it and am currently on no medication.

For the last several months, my mouth has been very irritated and it is VERY dry. Whenever I close my mouth, I have to sort of 'peel' my tongue away from the roof of my mouth. Over the last few weeks, I've developed "foamy" saliva. This is worse in the mornings. Despite how dry my mouth is, I'll suddenly feel all this foamy gross saliva fill my mouth (seems like it's coming up from my throat - not from my salivary glands) and I'll have to spit it out. My mouth tastes bad and my breath does not exactly smell like roses. My tongue is paler than usual and has developed some fissures in the center. It has also become "scalloped", meaning it's too big for my mouth and gets teeth marks around the edges. I switched to an alcohol free mouthwash thinking perhaps that was drying out my mouth too much. My mouth feels better right after I use it, but the bad taste returns soon enough.

I'm also constantly swallowing because it feels like there's phlegm stuck in my throat. I have post nasal drip, so I don't know if it's from that or from acid coming up. Over the past few months, I've been experiencing ear pain and pain in my neck/under my jaw. At first I was worried it was my lymph nodes or something (they were never swollen though), but then it hit me that it could be reflux. I also noticed some inflamed taste buds on the very back of my tongue a couple weeks ago, so I'm wondering if I'm having "silent reflux" which is irritating the far back of my tongue and throat.

Does this sound like it could be GERD related?