recurrent unilateral cheek swelling-maybe parotid

[thenmama]

Hi all,

 

Wondering if anyone's ever seen intermittent/recurrent swelling of the cheek, possibly parotid gland, in their child. Ds has periods where his speech becomes more physically difficult, like it's somehow obstructed and/or there's an excess of saliva or he's not clearing it out. There's always some degree of physical speech issues present and we're looking at that, too. But, he started a major PANDAS symptom spike this weekend, seemed under the weather but never developed other symptoms, then last night I noticed his speech clarity worsening and one cheek was markedly puffy. He also complained that "the bumps" were back- and by this he means some sort of bump on the inside of the cheek inside the mouth (not visible like a sore- thinking maybe gland?). We've had these issues before (always with flares) and prior to PANDAS did a few rounds of allergy testing when we thought his complaints about his mouth were possibly some sort of allergic reaction (never tracked a common trigger and tests negative). So, this seems to be a recurrent issue, not an isolated incident. I thought he was improving yesterday so didn't bring him in b/c flu is so rampant, but then this started last night. Our ped is out today so I booked first thing tomorrow morning. He doesn't look as swollen this morning and isn't acting sick so I'd rather wait to see his primary to look at and address the big picture. FWIW, he also has pretty big tonsils and that's on our list of things to eval/address.

 

Any ideas or clues? Anyone else experienced something like this?

 

TIA!

[dut]

Hi - we had maybe just 2 episodes of this with dd when she was maybe 18 months or so. We also thought parotid cos my mom had had issues with that (she was getting dehydrated and that was the partial cause for her).

 

our ped said to get her to suck a lemon. The astringency causes the saliva glands to really get going and that can shift any blockage.

 

We finally determined it wasn't parotid and just ended up with a fairly muddy dx of angiodema. It does run in the family - my bro gets tongue and lip swelling with no identifiable trigger and ds is always itchy also with no identifiable triggers - perhaps for ds and my bro it's just aberrant mast cells.

 

Perhaps you could try the sucking a lemon or drinking lemon juice thing to see if it does anything...

 

Good luck, hope you get to the bottom of it.

[kimballot]

I have some parotid problems and duct problems myself. The swelling is very far back - really more under my ear near my neck. It is very painful and is especially painful if I eat lemons or lemon drops as it fills with fluid. However, sucking on lemons or lemon drops does flush it out and after that initial pain it is quite helpful.

 

If the problem is more in the cheek then angioedema or other allergic reaction such as hives is a possibility. I would get this checked out when it occurs and also keep a close eye on the child - If it is angio then the tongue could swell as well and could impair breathing.