Overview

Burning mouth syndrome is the medical term for ongoing or recurring burning in the mouth without an obvious cause. You may feel this burning on your tongue, gums, lips, inside of your cheeks, roof of your mouth or large areas of your whole mouth. The feeling of burning can be severe, as if you injured your mouth with a very hot drink.

Burning mouth syndrome usually comes on suddenly, but it can develop slowly over time. Often the specific cause can’t be found. Although that makes treatment more challenging, working closely with your health care team can help you reduce symptoms.

Symptoms

Symptoms of burning mouth syndrome may include:

• A burning or scalding feeling that most commonly affects your tongue, but also may affect your lips, gums, roof of your mouth, throat or whole mouth.
• A feeling of dry mouth with increased thirst.
• Taste changes in your mouth, such as a bitter or metallic taste.
• Loss of taste.
• Tingling, stinging or numbness in your mouth.

The discomfort from burning mouth syndrome can have several different patterns. It may:

• Happen every day, with little discomfort when waking up, but become worse as the day goes on.
• Start as soon as you wake up and last all day.
• Come and go.

Whatever pattern of mouth discomfort you have, burning mouth syndrome may last for months to years. In rare cases, symptoms may suddenly go away on their own or happen less often. Sometimes the burning feeling may be briefly relieved during eating or drinking.

Burning mouth syndrome usually doesn’t cause any physical changes to your tongue or mouth that can be seen.

When to see a doctor

If you have discomfort, burning or soreness of your tongue, lips, gums or other areas of your mouth, see your health care provider or dentist. They may need to work together to help pinpoint a cause and come up with an effective treatment plan.

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