What does this mean?
Your nose and sinuses produce mucus all day long, and normally you swallow it without noticing. Feeling the drip most of the time comes not from the mucus being there, but from a change in how thick it is, how much there is, or how sensitive your throat has become to it. As the mucus thickens it catches at the back, and the urge to clear your throat follows.
What sets this symptom apart is that the trouble gathers in the throat rather than the nose. Your nose is clear, yet you feel the need to clear your throat again and again; it gets worse when you lie on your back and towards morning. The drip is mostly on both sides, and no bad smell comes forward towards your nostrils. Foul-smelling discharge that comes forward is a separate picture, and when it is on one side the source may be the upper teeth.
What concerns a dental practice here is bad breath. Mucus running down the back of the throat collects on the back part of the tongue and feeds the bacteria living there. Breath from this source most of the time does not clear with brushing more often or with a scale and polish. When no cause for bad breath can be found inside the mouth, post-nasal drip, reflux and tonsil stones are considered in turn.
The mucus running down the back of your throat can come from the nose and sinuses, but also from the stomach or the tonsils. Below are the conditions most often named alongside this symptom; which one applies is settled by examination.
Likely causes
What helps at home?
- Drink water regularly through the day; as the mucus thins, the feeling of something catching in the throat eases for most people.
- Use a ready-made saline solution to rinse your nose, and avoid rinsing with tap water that has not been boiled.
- Clean the back part of your tongue every day with a soft scraper or brush, and do not push past the point where you gag.
- Try to cut down the habit of clearing your throat loudly; that action irritates the lining and makes the feeling of a drip stronger.
- If the discharge is on one side and smells bad
- If there is blood in the discharge all the time
- If your voice has been hoarse for more than three weeks, or you have trouble swallowing
- If you have noticed a hard, painless lump in your neck that will not go away
- If a fever, one-sided face pain and swelling around the eye have started
Frequently asked questions
- Could my bad breath be from post-nasal drip?
- It could. Most bad breath comes from the coating of bacteria on the back of the tongue and from gum problems; where the mouth is found to be clean and the smell carries on, post-nasal drip is a common cause. Mucus running down the back of the throat collects on the back part of the tongue and breaks down there. In that situation the smell is not expected to clear with dental cleaning alone; the cause of the drip is dealt with as well.
- Does clearing my throat all the time do any harm?
- Clearing your throat loudly slams the vocal cords together and irritates the lining. The more irritated it gets, the more you feel the need to clear it, and a cycle sets up that feeds itself. Swallowing, taking a few sips of water or coughing gently is usually more help in breaking that cycle.
- Can reflux and post-nasal drip be mistaken for each other?
- They can. Both cause a feeling of something catching in the throat, feeling sick in the morning and constant throat clearing. There is one clue a dentist can see in telling them apart: stomach acid leaves a particular pattern of wear on the palate side of the upper front teeth and on the biting surfaces of the back teeth. Where that pattern is there, reflux is brought into the assessment too.
This content is for general information and does not replace an in-person examination. Symptoms overlap between conditions, and a diagnosis can only be made clinically.