Pardon the overly descriptive title — I’m trying to help anyone who was in my position over the last week get some relief and sometimes accurate titles are what’s needed. I am recovering from a salivary gland infection and, with my last dose of antibiotics today, I wanted to do a little deep dive on a weirder part of recovery: eating sour things to stimulate the salivary glands.
While lightly embarrassing, here’s a photo of the mass on the side of my face from the infection (I wore a beanie to try to hide it a bit along with my disheveled hair). Between the pain level and my gnarly appearance, I had to cancel recording a presentation for an upcoming online event.
This was 24 hours after the peak of the swelling, when I woke up in a panic and realized I needed to get help. In researching what helps, outside of warm compresses and antiobiotics, article after article talked about sucking on “sugar-free lemon drops” to stimulate your salivary glands. The problem is lemon drops are no where to be found and there’s a confusing amount of supposed sour candy options to wade through. I’d also be remiss to mention the “sugar free” part as I immediately ignored that recommendation. As anyone who has overdone sugar-free anything will tell you, that’s a recipe for GI issues (never forget the sugar-free haribo gummie bears) and you don’t need to add that to the salivary gland issues. Check anything sugar free for sugar alcohol, like sorbitol, and proceed with caution.
I wouldn’t call myself a connoisseur of sour things but I would say I have some expertise having loved sour candy for 20+ years. When you grow up with a dad with an extremely large sugar tooth, you learn what candy he doesn’t like and start solely bringing that home so you can preserve your stash. What follows are my ratings of various options on the market along with a recommendation for a “sour” treatment regime that worked for me. To be clear, the ratings are specific to helping stimulate the salivary gland. If I were rating these based on their enjoyment status, sour straws would be 10/10 as a long time favorite candy.
Table of contents
Ratings
Toxic waste: 10/10
I went looking for war heads but found these instead and was overjoyed when I realized they are basically the same thing. This is the sour equivalent of taking an ice bath when you could just slowly ice an area. It’s intense, long lasting, and a shock to the system. I loved it and never felt it was agitating my salivary gland.
Pros:
- Truly and deeply sour.
- Long lasting (much longer lasting than the lemon heads).
- Don’t go bad or start tasting strange after opening them for a few days.
- Small/portable with individual wrappers on each candy (shown below).
- Come in different flavors within the container for variety.
Cons:
- Can ruin your taste buds if you consume too many.
- Can cause a spike in pain if you’re salivary gland isn’t ready.
How I ate them: I recommend licking the candy a few times before trying to hold it in your mouth for a few seconds. I did a routine of licking for a bit before holding for seconds at a time and, when tolerance was in place, leaving it in to suck on.
Where I bought them: gas station
Icebreakers sours: 7/10
I was stoked to remember these existed and was brought back to childhood memories biking around at 2am in Florida with my best friend sucking on these to stay awake. These are an excellent, throughout the day option to use and, if I go through this all over again, would be the first thing I snagged. It’s sour but not too sour and very easy to carry around or cuddle up with when not feeling well.
Pros:
- Solidly sour without being overwhelming.
- Long lasting (much longer lasting than the lemon heads).
- Don’t go bad or start tasting strange after opening them for a few days.
- Small/portable since you can carry the container with you in a pocket.
- Come in different flavors within the container for variety.
Cons:
- They are sugar free and contain sorbitol so don’t run through these too quickly.
How I ate them: just popped them in sometimes two at a time. They aren’t too sour that you need to build a tolerance or they could flatten your taste buds.
Where I bought them: gas station.
Lemonheads: 5/10
These are good starter options if you aren’t looking to shock your salivary gland but want to see how it might feel to have smaller moments of sourness. I had to be careful not to just bite down on them, making them dissolve quickly. I’d often do a round of 3-5 in a row or a few at a time to “up” the levels.
Pros:
- Small.
- Don’t go bad or start tasting strange after opening them for a few days.
- Taste good in general/easy to eat.
Cons:
- Not truly sour and I think it’ll leave you wanting something more heavy hitting.
- Don’t last long when sucking on them compared to the icebreakers or toxic waste.
- Not terribly portable since they are exposed upon opening and, when dealing with an infection, I wouldn’t tempt fate.
How I ate them: just popped them in sometimes two at a time, similar to the icebreakers.
Where I bought them: Walgreens
Smart Sweets: Sour Blast Buddies: 2/10
I bought these out of desperation, mainly trying to avoid super high sugar content at a time when my body was fighting an infection. I regret it and don’t recommend these at all.
Pros:
- Far less sugar and the sugar used is stevia (not sorbitol).
Cons:
- Not a good taste.
- Not sour enough.
- Not portable.
- Start to go bad after opening them (they will harden and lose some flavor).
How I ate them: begrudgingly. Jokes aside, I only ate a few before realizing they wouldn’t do much for me. You can easily consume as much as you want of these.
Where I bought them: walgreens
Sour Punch Straws/Air Heads EXTREMES/etc: 1/10
I am lumping these together because they are all basically the same level of sour and, let’s face it, they are just candy. The only reason they are at the bottom is the sugar level when compared to the Smart Sweets which I frankly hated. I don’t recommend getting anything like this at all. It will not help, they aren’t sour enough, and the sugar content is far too high to be helpful when your body is trying to heal.
Pros:
- Taste good.
- Easy to eat.
Cons:
- Not sour enough.
- Very high sugar content.
- Not portable.
- Start to go bad after opening them (they will harden and lose some flavor).
How I ate them: I didn’t actually get to the place of finding these to be worth it to open. I didn’t want the risk of the sugar content combined with the lower sour effectiveness.
Where I bought them: walgreens.
Daily Recommendation
When in the more acute phases, I’d do the following:
- 1-2 of the toxic waste or warhead variety, digesting them very slowly and within tolerance levels.
- Consume as much lemon water as you can and suck on the remnants when making the lemon water. Use real lemons.
- Intersperse icebreakers or lemonheads throughout the day a few times.
FAQs
How high is your pain level for sour candy?
I have a pretty high pain tolerance for sour things which is why I noted the ways I consumed the candy to help give context. I wasn’t just throwing back the toxic waste candy at first but, within a few days, I could pretty easily to the point that one dinner I felt how messed up my taste buds were.
I’d recommend finding your base level then going up or down from there based on the above.
How does it feel to consume sour things when dealing with a salivary gland infection?
While it can add to the pain, it felt like an internal massage of the gland. For the truly sour options I had, I could genuinely feel it stimulating the area and I do believe it helped nudge it along.
Did you use all of these sour options as treatment?
I ended up very quickly sticking with a combination of toxic waste in small doses (1/2 per day), icebreakers, lemonheads, and lemon water. I bought the other sour candy in a bit of a panic desperate for anything to help my salivary gland and never even opened the sour straws because I’ve had them so many times and knew they couldn’t compare to the other options I had.
agm 
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