As the title says, I’ve always wondered why your throat feels dry or scratchy when you have a cold or tonsillitis etc. I have tried looking it up but I only got common causes for a dry thrust and not the answer I was looking for, which is *why* your throat feels that way. What process causes this when you get sick?
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In your example it could be a couple things. One, when you have a cold/stuffed nose/sore throat, a lot of the time your throat might hurt because it is literally dry. When the nose isn’t working right, we tend to mouth breath. Mouth breathing leads to drying of the oral mucosa.
Or two, a sore throat can be caused by inflammation. Inflammation causes heat (why we get fevers, hot joints, warm skin when they’re infected) because the immune system releases a whole bunch of stuff to drive up your temperature to kill bugs. So, when it’s hot people usually feel dry. Think about the southwestern US and how it’s “a dry heat”. Without any wetness available+high temps, you’ll feel dry.
I hope that makes sense!
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