Dry mouth, lack of saliva, can contribute to oral thrush. Everyone has, needs candida in the body, and just gets out of control when the body can't balance it effectively due to a compromised immune system, radiation, medications, etc. Besides seeing your doctors to properly diagnose, reducing foods that feed thrush, avoiding other irritating things to the mouth, gums, throat, such as hot, spicy, acidic and sharp textured foods may help. For a while even milk irritated my mouth, sugar/lactic acid, so I avoided that.