Burning Mouth Syndrome, Diagnosis and Management (with Dr. Hayley Vatcher, Oral Medicine Specialist)

2023-12-18

Burning Mouth Syndrome is not a strictly surgical topic, but it’s something practitioners will often deal with. During this episode, Dr. Hayley Vatcher returns to the podcast to share her insights on this complex diagnosis and how best to treat it. Tune in as Dr. Vatcher draws on her years of experience to offer guidelines on identifying when patients are struggling with this condition and advising them on how to manage it. Starting with more conservative approaches, we explore different methods of dealing with Burning Mouth and reducing the s...

Key Points From This Episode:

Welcome to Oral Medicine Specialist, Dr. Hayley Vatcher.
Defining Burning Mouth Syndrome, also referred to as Complex Oral Sensitivity Disorder (COSD).
Neuropathic aspects of Burning Mouth Syndrome.
How it is managed without surgery.
Why Burning Mouth Syndrome is a diagnosis of exclusion.
Ruling out the possibility of a vitamin deficiency instead of COSD.
Why something that soothes an ordinary mouth will burn someone with COSD.
The patient experiences of burning sensations elsewhere on the body or the skin.
Treatment options for patients suffering with this condition.
Why practitioners regularly start with a more conservative approach to treatment.
Optimizing vitamin intake as a supplementary treatment.
Noting that the symptoms are not visible to the eye within the mouth.
Why the condition is most common in post-menopausal women.
The possibility of whether other medicines can cause Burning Mouth.
What has led to the lack of surgical intervention for this condition.
Historical data that has shown a Vitamin B Complex to reduce symptoms.
Research into different nutritional solutions.
Why many of these patients have often already seen three to four other practitioners.