Last Monday in a matter of hours I experienced rapid sudden swelling in the perotid region of my face. it happened, literally in 2 hours my jaws below my ears swelled to the size of walnuts. I looked like I had an extremely bad case of the mumps. Then almost as rapidly the shrank down to a more normal size. Though I still looked like I had oversized jaws. I could pass as normal looking. Then, just today, Thursday, they started to swell visibly and noticiably and rapidly again. It's not painful. I don't have a fever. I don't notice any discharge. The only thing I do notice is at the base of my jaw under and infront of my ear is hard swollen tissue underneath the skin. Otherwise, I feel fine. One other thing, concurrant to this, I have developed an extreme sensativity to the taste of salt. Any salt makes food almost inedible, and I have a constant strong unpleasant sour taste in my mouth. Does this sound like anything related to the meds I'm taking, Virimune, DDC and Emtriva? Or does this type of swelling normally come on extremely rapidly and fluctuate? I have an Appt. with the Dr. next week to see if this is a sign of something. In the meantime I thought I'd ask you. Does it sound lymphatic? I haven't noticed any other lymph gland swelling anywhere, or does it sound more related to the saliva glands?

There is a long list of conditions that can cause parotid swelling including: many drugs vitamin deficiencies diabetes liver conditions pancreatitis bacterial or viral infections sjogrens syndrome amyloidosis alcohol reaction Getting a good ENT evaluation with exam and or/parotid ultrasound or CT can perhaps start narrowing down the possibilities. There are lymph nodes in the area so a good exam to better localize which structures are involved. KH