Questions:

  1. My mouth feels dry and burning all the time. What can I do?
  2. My palate hurts a lot and has for a couple of days. Why?
  3. My gums in one area are really sore and there is a bad taste in my mouth often. What might cause this?
  4. My tongue hurts a lot – kind of a burning sensation. What could be wrong?
  5. The side of my tongue is really sore, and if I bite the area accidentally it is horrible for a minute. Why?
  6. The inside of my lower lip is really sore and there is a white spot there. What is it?
  7. I wear dentures. The inside edge of the lower denture is really sore and I’d like to know what to do.

Short Answers with Links:

You might visit Chapter IV.2 on Soft Tissue Examination before you read these answers. It explains what we are looking for with various tissues within the mouth.

  1. My mouth feels dry and burning all the time. What can I do? There are many possible causes of a dry and burning sensation in the mouth. The most problematic is head and neck radiation therapy. When this is prolonged, it is likely that there will be damage to the salivary glands – especially the parotids, which are just inside the jaw on the right and left. But when there is cancer anywhere around the neck – and it all to often shows up in the spine and brain – dry mouth is an expected outcome. The symptoms from this will depend on how the immune system responds. The salivary glands produce antibodies, especially what is called secretory IgA, which is responsible for combatting a variety of oral infections. When the salivary ducts are compromised and s-IgA is not present in the idea concentration in the mouth, various bacterial and fungal infections may begin to flourish. Candidiasis or Thrush would not be unusual under these circumstances. The best that can be done to ameliorate the effects of fungal infections is the use of a dry-mouth rinse such as Biotene, available over the counter – perhaps combined with a prescribed rinse that has anesthetic qualities………………..BACK to Questions
  2. My palate hurts a lot and has for a couple of days. Why? There are many possible reasons for a painful palate. But we need not look far for the answer sometimes – for I will usually ask my patient when is that last time they ate pizza! Pizza mouth is something most people are familiar with, but if you were eating pizza and drinking a pitcher of beer at the same time, you might have no memory of the event itself. I once had a patient come in that had a tortilla chip embedded in her palate – she felt something sharp and it was very sore, but I just needed to do the chip extraction and she was fine. Of course there are other things that can produce symptoms on the palate, but the good news is that the ones that DON’T produce symptoms are the ones that are of most concern! If mechanical or heat trauma is not something that seems to fit your particular situation, it will be best to have a dentist inspect your palate carefully – of course you can start with a friend checking it out………………… BACK to Questions
  3. My gums in one area are really sore and there is a bad taste in my mouth often. What might cause this? The bad taste part is usually a sign of something serious wrong, but not always. If you get food lodged between your teeth and it stays there for a few days, the same thing will happen there that happens in your garbage bag in the kitchen. It may well have something to do with your particular diet as well. And, this often extends to challenging BREATH SMELLS. I say diet because I have occasionally had students with breath smells that literally drive people out of the room , and they always seem to be from the same Asian country. On the other hand, a bad taste may also arise from an infection that has gotten to the point of creating an abscess. The abscess is an area where dead immune cells and bacteria are accumulated – basically this is the battlefield with the dead and wounded lying around. This abscess could be at the apex of the root, where the bacteria come from the infected tooth itself. Or it could be associated with a deep periodontal pocket where bacteria that thrive in the absence of air accumulate. In either case the pus from the abscess will eventually find its way out of the area and into the mouth to relieve pressure. The pressure will commonly cause a lot of pain, but when it finds a way to drain it is relieving – but not a pleasant taste! ……………….. BACK to Questions
  4. My tongue hurts a lot – kind of a burning sensation. What could be wrong? This could well be a fungal infection caused by wearing dentures too long, long term use of antibiotics or vitamin deficiency. Thrush is a common condition that is easily corrected, if that is the nature of the problem, perhaps by taking an antifungal medication. It is also possible that there is an inflammation of the taste buds – which can arise from a variety of causes – including deficient vitamins, eating spicy foods, or even an allergic reaction to something……………….. BACK to Questions
  5. The side of my tongue is really sore, and if I bite the area accidentally it is horrible for a minute. Why? If you bite the side of your tongue and it really hurts, it is probably because you have bitten it previously. I know that when I bite my tongue (literally), it will often produce a canker sore in the area – which is especially sore and inflamed. If I bite it again, the pain is FAR higher. From personal experience, I will tend to get canker sores (apthous ulcers) in traumatized areas when I am eating more sweets. We commonly check the borders of the tongue when checking a patient’s soft tissue for lesions, but it is the lesions that the patient is NOT aware of, because they are painless, that engender the greatest concern. ……………….. BACK to Questions
  6. The inside of my lower lip is really sore and there is a white spot there. What is it and what can I do? If it is the INSIDE of the lip it it most likely a canker sore that originates from biting the lip. Another source of pain on the lip would be from a “cold sore”, but these show up on the outside of the lip. The “cure” for canker sores used to be application of a stick with some silver nitrate on the end, which cauterized the ulcerous area. It was INCREDIBLY painful – but before I was a dentist, I didn’t know any better. Basically it took a weeks worth of canker sore pain and condensed ALL of that pain into ten minutes. NOT pleasant. But, these days we use a steroid compound with a paste that covers the ulcer. You can buy a paste to protect the area over-the-counter at the store, but it has no steroid. The dentist can prescribe for you Kenalog in Orobase – and your canker sore will be gone in a day! ……………….. BACK to Questions
  7. I wear dentures. The inside edge of the lower denture is really sore and I’d like to know what to do. This is a similar problem as described above for traumatic situations – the denture can rub an area sore, and when this happens a canker sore can be produced. The swelling and inflammation then makes the denture sore all the more troublesome. Again, Kenalog in Orobase is the solution until the adjustment made to the border of your denture by the dentist relieves the area……………….. BACK to Questions