Dangly Bits

After drinking far too much alcohol I usually wake up with a mouth that feels and smells like used cat litter. A few litres of water and several rounds of vigorous teeth scrubbing usually gets rid of the kitty litter mouth and I start to feel somewhere approaching normal again. After a recent night out, where alcohol played a major part in proceedings, I woke to find all the usual symptoms but I had trouble swallowing too. I inspected my mouth and throat in the mirror and discovered a swollen dangly bit, lazily resting on the back of my tongue where it should have been suspended from the roof of my mouth. My uvula (yoo- vyuu-luh) had swollen to at least twice its normal size and was doing its best to choke me to death from the inside. The uvula, as you may have deciphered is the dangly 'little grape' that hangs from the roof of your mouth and is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the tonsils.

The fat little mass was just lying on the back of my tongue and worried me slightly. I had visions of it swelling more and more until it choked me to death, which would be a boring and shitty way to go. I am not at all a hypochondriac, in fact I rarely go to see a doctor unless I am expressly ordered by 'She Who Must Be Obeyed' but the thought of choking to death can bring about a change in attitude!

I phoned NHS direct, a 24 hour, nurse on a phone helpline for some advice and was told that "It will probably clear itself up" and that I was to phone an ambulance if it blocked my airway, presumably to wheeze down the line and have some call centre nurse listen to my final breath.

It turns out that dehydration, consuming alcohol, smoking, allergies and drugs, in particular snorting cocaine can all cause this relatively common complaint. So if your dangly bits suddenly swell up just drink a few litres of water and lay off the cocaine for a while.