Why my salivary gland is swollen?
What you are experiencing is a condition called the mumps. The reason why your glands are swollen is that your salivary glands are inflamed from the body’s natural reaction to destroy the invading pathogen. This is a bit problematic if you are an adult and male as the mumps occurring very late in life is usually followed by infertility as well. There is cure for the mumps and your salivary glands will come back to their normal size in a week. However, after this infection is complete, get some tests done to check for testosterone levels in the blood and analyze some sperm samples after a few weeks to ensure that the mumps have not caused infertility.
Mumps And Swollen Salivary Gland
The mumps is disease that usually afflicts children and the causative organism is a virus – typically the cytomegalovirus. The infection spreads by contact with the saliva of an infected person or someone who is a carrier. This is the reason why it is also contagious among children. Once the mumps attack, the virus starts to replicate in the salivary gland and the body responds with an immune system attack. To do this, the body has to swell up the area of infection and increase blood flow in a condition called inflammation. Since there is no definitive cure for any viral infection till date, all that you can do is to rest and give your body time to completely recover from the infection. This usually takes about a week before things come back to normal.
The cytomegalovirus unfortunately never leaves the body and hides away in the nerve cells of the body only to reactivate, reproduce, and then go back into a state of stasis. This is the typical action of all the viruses in this family that includes the herpes virus though when a herpes virus reactivates, it usually results in a repeat infection that is as severe as the first one. Dealing with this problem requires the use of anti-inflammatory medication like acetaminophen and a lot of fluids and the problem should go away in a week. Eating would be quite painful during this time so stick to a liquid diet only that includes soup. Ensure that you have a lot of garlic and ginger. Garlic has some effect against viruses but not enough to completely eliminate infection. Ginger is a good herb for dealing with inflammation in the body.
