what causes excessive drooling

According to the Mayo Clinic, excessive saliva can be the result of your salivary glands making more saliva than usual or because you are having difficulty swallowing.

Possible causes of excessive saliva are poor fitting dentures, an infection in your mouth or throat, GERD, side effect of certain medications, pregnancy and inflammation of mucous membranes in your mouth.

Arsenic and mercury poisoning, Bell's palsy, esophageal atresia, rabies, syphilis and tuberculosis are rare causes of increased saliva production.

Drooling or the decreased ability to swallow or to retain saliva in your mouth can be caused by acute sinusitis, allergies, chronic sinusitis, enlarged adenoids and tumor that affect your tongue or lip movement.

Conditions that affect your muscle coordination that lead to drooling include ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, autism, cerebral palsy, dementia, Down syndrome, Multiple sclerosis, Myasthenia gravis, Parkinson's disease and stroke.

Maryann