Various rinses may help relieve burning mouth - Burning Mouth Syndrome Articles

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I have burning tongue syndrome. At times, it is almost unbearable. The only thing that helps somewhat is a saltwater mouth rinse. My dentist, my internist and a neurologist haven't offered any relief.
I also get sores in my mouth and on my tongue. Any insight?

— P.H.

Burning tongue syndrome is also known as burning mouth syndrome because the gums, roof of the mouth and lips also can feel like they are on fire. It happens mostly, but not exclusively, to women after menopause. Although painful and disturbing, it's not a health threat. No one knows the exact cause, but it might be that nerves serving the tongue and mouth are malfunctioning.

Let me give you a few home remedies for it: rinsing the mouth with cold apple juice; and combining equal parts Benadryl elixir and Kaopectate as a mouthwash. Don't swallow these rinses, and use them four times a day. Another remedy is six drops of hot pepper sauce (Tabasco sauce) in a teaspoon of water and swishing it around in the mouth four times daily. It might increase the burning at first, but after a day or so it should lessen it.

Don't eat or drink spicy or acidic foods or beverages. Don't use mouthwashes with alcohol in them. Change your toothpaste brand. Chew sugarless gum.

When burning mouth fails to respond to the above, the medicines Klonopin, Elavil or Neurontin might help.

Have your doctors looked for things like dry mouth, B vitamin deficiencies, anemia, diabetes, lichen planus, thyroid problems and Sjogren's syndrome?

Sores on the tongue and in the mouth are not ordinarily a part of burning tongue syndrome. Get to a doctor when the sores are present. You might have recurrent canker sores and not burning mouth syndrome.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: Will you please define claudication and its treatment?

— R.L.

Claudication is leg pain that comes on with activity and is due to clogged leg arteries. Depending on where the clog is, the pain can be felt in the buttocks, the hips, the thighs or the calves. The medical name of this condition is peripheral artery (or vascular) disease.

Quite often, pain arises in the calves. Affected people have an uncanny ability to predict how far they can walk before they have to stop because of pain. Resting relieves the pain, and walking can then resume.

Plenty can be done for it. Medicines can sometimes keep the pain from developing. Another way is to open the clogged artery with a balloon-tipped, slender, pliable tube (catheter), just as they do for clogged heart arteries. Or the same kind of heart artery operation in which grafts replace the obstructed artery can be done for leg arteries.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: Several months ago, I was in the doctor's office for a regular checkup. Eventually someone called "Robert" and I answered the summons and was ushered into a room with test equipment. Some kind of electrocardiac procedure was done, and the technician said, "That's it." I left. The following Monday, I got a call from the doctor's office asking if I had been in the previous Friday and did I have whatever the test was. I said I had been there. She said that the test was for another Robert, and we had to reschedule an appointment.

I know most of the personnel in that office, but this technician was a new one to me, and I think it would have been wise to make sure who the patient was.

— R.P.

Now, that is weird. You didn't pay for the visit or the test, did you?

Readers may write to Dr. Donohue or request an order form of available health newsletters at P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475. Readers may also order health newsletters from www.rbmamall.com.

November 12, 2008
Paul G. Donohue M.D.
South Coast Media Group
Newsroom@S-T.com