We study the light and heavy quark mass dependence of the low-lying charmed mesons in the framework of one-loop HH$\chi$PT. The low energy constants are determined by analyzing the available lattice data from different LQCD simulations. Model selection tools are implemented to determine the relevant parameters as required by data with a higher precision. Discretization and other effects due to the charm quark mass setting are discussed. We also show how this study can be used for studying the quark mass dependence of exotic states, which is connected to their molecular nature. In particular, we show several results from analyses of LQCD data for the $D_{s0}(2317)$, $D_{s1}(2460)$ and the $T_{cc}(3875)$.