Burning Mouth Syndrome and Me

Posted on March 4, 2022 by kalipr

Strange title for a post on a blog that has “One Woman’s Experience with Burning Mouth Syndrome” in its title, right?

But it seems to be necessary at this time of divisiveness and stress to reiterate that this is my experience. Yes, I do reference what little research has been done on this burning neuralgia, and will continue to send people to the BMS Support Website where they can read it themselves.

The truth is that NO ONE KNOWS what causes Burning Mouth. You can suspect dental work (I do personally!), or stress, or vaccines of any kind, or whatever you want to, but again I stress that NO ONE KNOWS.

When I decided to start this blog, it was for two reasons. One was to give me an outlet to say how it was feeling to me and what it was doing to me. Expressing yourself can give some relief. The second was to share what I learned about it, all the things I tried, how I got my diagnosis, and what coping strategies helped me and might help others.

Continue reading →

Remission? Not So Much-Burning Mouth Syndrome

Posted on August 28, 2021 by kalipr

My pain had been decreasing, and the distraction of helping others (always a good coping strategy) seemed to be making things even better. I took less medicine and reached for the cold water less frequently as I quenched thirst, not pain.

Then I had my yearly dental checkup and teeth cleaning this week, and although my hygienist was so careful and gentle, the burning is back. As I sit typing this, mid-morning, my tongue feels as painful as ever and my cold drink is by my side as much as possible.

I probably should have known better since I experienced remission once long ago, and it was not a gradual thing at all. I simply woke one morning in London with no pain. I thought the antibiotic I started before leaving on the vacation had worked, and celebrated that it was “over,” but I didn’t really have a clue that I was in remission at the time. I thought I was cured!

So, my Burning Mouth Syndrome friends, the journey continues. I will increase my dose of Clonazepam/Klonopin ODT slightly until this flare subsides, but will go back to the lowest dose as soon as it is possible.

I plan to keep searching and talking with you. I will stay informed by the Burning Mouth Support website as possible research and studies may lead to treatments or cures over time.

Stay tuned, and hold on to hope.

Am I Getting Better? – Burning Mouth Syndrome

Posted on July 5, 2021 by kalipr

In May, I began a “job” again for the first time in about thirty years. I have been working as a volunteer all this time, but it was at my convenience and although there were busy times, it was not a constant or consistent routine.

Now I care for my five-month-old grandson who was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at three weeks old. I drive to my daughter’s home by 7 AM each weekday morning and leave at 3:30 PM to beat the traffic home. (She and her husband work full time, right now at home but increasingly in their offices.) I feed him, change him, bathe him, play with him, and interact except when he naps. While he naps I help around the house with laundry, dishes, and preparing bottles. Now we are beginning solid food and that will be another adventure!

What does this have to do with my Burning Mouth Syndrome pain?

Continue reading →

Year 14 Begins – Burning Mouth Syndrome

Posted on May 9, 2021 by kalipr

In addition to celebrating my first Mother’s Day as a grandmother, I am sobered by the fact that this begins my fourteenth year of Burning Mouth Syndrome.

I never imagined when this journey began that it would last so long and would affect my life so much. Each year at this time, I review and see what I have learned, whether there has been any improvement in my pain, and evaluate how much I have been able to help others who are not as far down this road. I have kept up with the research on the BMS Support website and respond to comments on this blog regularly, and it feels like those are helpful things to do.

2020 was a challenge for everyone. The COVID19 pandemic took the chessboard we usually move around on and tossed it in the air. Sickness, Death, Lockdowns, Masks, Respirators, Ventilators, PPE, Social Distancing, and more, all became a part of the pandemic landscape and our new vocabulary. The folks who dealt with chronic pain and illness had to find a new level of coping skills and count ourselves lucky that it wasn’t worse if we were able to avoid COVID.

2021 started out very hopeful with the advent of incredibly effective vaccines, but the rollout was uneven and slow, frustrating even the most patient of us. Then the variants began popping up around the world, inevitable but scary, and things were made even more chaotic as disinformation spread and vaccine hesitancy became a thing.

Continue reading →

Stress and Burning Mouth Syndrome

Posted on June 7, 2020 by kalipr

Stress. We know it makes our chronic neuropathic pain worse. Our pain increases as stress rises, which increases pain, which increases stress…and well, you know the rest.

It’s an automated answering system from Hell, with no readily visible pound sign to hit to get a live person on the line. Or is it?

Stress is coming at us from all sides now, from the worries and complications of the pandemic to the feelings and actions we are experiencing about racial equality and equity. We are not alone in our stress by any means, but chronic pain sufferers can be triggered in more than one way by it.

I admit that I resisted counseling at the beginning of my Burning Mouth Syndrome journey. I had an instinctively negative reaction to the assumption that this pain was “all in my head,” or that therapy could or would help. It also felt suspiciously like I was getting shuffled off into the “menopausal female” box where any aches or pains or issues were part of the incredibly mysterious malady that seemed to be menopause. As a strong and independent female, I rejected this categorization and marginalization and started fighting back.

How? Continue reading →

A New Year with Burning Mouth Syndrome

Posted on January 2, 2020 by kalipr

(c)Can Stock Photo/Deskcube

Another year begins and this summer it will end my twelfth year and start my thirteenth with our little friend, Burning Mouth Syndrome (BMS). That is a long time, but there are others out there who have suffered longer. Sometimes, much longer.

As we round the corner into 2020, what have we learned?

BMS is still a mystery. There are evidently no celebrities in the world who suffer from it (or at least they aren’t publicizing it). Diagnosis is still one of exclusion and takes dedication, discomfort, time, and resources to achieve. Most importantly, there is no cure in sight. Continue reading →

Breaking In a New Doctor – Burning Mouth Syndrome Challenges

Posted on October 19, 2019 by kalipr

Photo by Shopify Partners from Burst

You can find yourself with a new doctor for a variety of reasons. New insurance, moving to a new town, a referral to a pain specialist or Neurologist…these are just a few. In all of these cases, you will need to bring your new doctor up to speed about a chronic neuropathic pain syndrome they may never have heard about.

A Neurologist or pain specialist may have dealt with BMS before and if you have a choice in the matter, try to find one who has. Their experiences may be to your benefit.

However, many of us are caught in that somewhat awkward position of educating our medical professional and it can be daunting if you aren’t prepared. Continue reading →

Heat and Burning Mouth Syndrome

Posted on August 27, 2019 by kalipr

photo by Pexels

Here’s something that has crept up on me gradually over the years and was greatly masked by the air-conditioned environment I live in. My home is Texas, ya’ll, and so hot summers are the price we pay for moderate winters. It’s expected, and to be frank, if everything wasn’t air-conditioned, I think only the hardiest individuals (along with snakes, scorpions, bugs of many sizes, and lizards) would hang out here much.

Heat and heat indexes (the temperature it really feels like) are what have inched up over the years. Texas fakes you out with the occasional string of 100 degree plus days each summer, and until some source shows you the overall trend over decades, you don’t really get that it is just flat getting hotter! I never enjoyed that aspect of Texas summers (I am a Washington State girl when it comes to temperatures!) but since Burning Mouth Syndrome has become a part of my existence, it is even worse. Going outside for a walk right now is like entering a dryer and breathing oven air for me. The hot wind flares my BMS pain more than anything else I can think of and the flare continues long past when I have retreated into air-conditioning.

Hydration and medicine help, and sometimes I even resort to xylitol discs to moisten my mouth, but often it seems like nothing pushes back that flare until it is ready to retreat. Meanwhile, I throw iced water down like a marathon runner and hope it will end soon.

Does this happen to you? Let me know in the comments!

The BMS-Support website has several articles that deal with ongoing research into the salivary system in Burning Mouth Syndrome sufferers, and although I applaud that scientists and researchers are looking at it, a diagnostic method and treatment option can’t come fast enough.

We are burning up.

Burning Mouth Fantasies

Posted on August 5, 2019 by kalipr

A friend asked the other day how I was doing. Was the burning any better? Had they found any cures?

I assured her that all was the same. I am so grateful for the efficacy of Aimovig in controlling my migraines, but it has, as expected, done nothing for Burning Mouth Syndrome (BMS). The Clonazepam ODT I take twice a day keeps the burning at a level where I can function and only occasionally do I have a flare of a day (or three) where nothing seems to touch the pain level much and staying very hydrated, sleeping and being quiet are the only coping strategies that get me through the day(s).

After we spoke, however, I found myself in a fantasy where I typed the amazing title of a blog post. “Burning Mouth Syndrome Cure is Here!” I was delighted as I daydreamed about a day when we would all descend on our doctors in droves, eager to start the totally fictional therapy that would break us out of the bars of this chronic pain prison. I imagined how gleeful I would be to write that very last post in my “Burning Mouth Journey” as I sent people on to pursue their cure and closed this shop up once and for all. Continue reading →