A useful source for the drug-dry mouth relationship.

Dear Dr. Alvares: I want to bring to the attention of the JDE readership a drug-dry mouth website that I believe can be a valuable resource for our academicians and general practitioners engaged in diagnosis and treatment planning. This free, readily available website is at www.drymouth.info. This site is a comprehensive source that provides authoritative information about oral dryness and, especially, its relationship to the intake of drugs. Separate portals on the site are dedicated to consumers (patients) and to practitioners. Oral dryness is a symptom that affects from 20 to about 40 percent of the adult population. It is more commonly observed in women than men (F/M ratio = 9:1), and its prevalence increases steadily with age. Moreover, it is rarely a solitary symptom. Frequently accompanying it is a wide variety of oral, as well as systemic, desiccatory conditions. Basic activities such as speech, taste, mastication, smell, sight, and even sex—functions that provide us with so much pleasure—may be seriously affected. Xerostomia is primarily caused by systemic diseases and by the intake of xerogenic drugs. More than 1800 drugs have the ability to induce xerostomia. The consumer (patient) portal of the website consists of sections addressing the following questions: 1) What is dry mouth? 2) What causes dry mouth? 3) What happens when your mouth feels dry? and 4) What are some treatments for dry mouth? It also includes a search engine that allows consumers to examine the register of drugs capable of inducing oral dryness. The portal directed to the practitioner presents detailed information about 1) the complexities of the drug-dry mouth relationship; 2) data on the symptoms, signs, and causes of xerostomia; 3) information about the relationship among drugs, dry mouth, and salivary flow; and 4) selected treatment modalities, as well as the drug search engine. The search for drugs may be conducted according to their trade or generic name, alphabetically or by drug class. A search for Prozac, for example, reveals its chemical formulation, dosage forms, classification, and capacity to induce dryness (indicated by cactus symbols) and whether it also has the ability to cause dry eyes (indicated by an eye symbol). This example is as follows: