Free tool
Burning mouth: what hasn't been checked yet
This will not tell you what you have — no questionnaire can do that honestly. What it does is walk through what a thorough workup includes, and show you which parts of it nobody appears to have done.
Free. About four minutes. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
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Why "what hasn't been checked" and not "what do you have"
Any tool claiming to tell you which kind of burning mouth you have is overstating what a questionnaire can do. Symptoms overlap, the conditions that mimic this one are numerous, and the whole reason burning mouth is hard is that it looks like nothing on examination.
What can be established honestly is different, and more useful. There is a reasonably settled list of things a thorough investigation covers. Most people who have lived with this for years have had almost none of it done — and nobody has ever shown them the list.
Seeing it changes the question from what is wrong with me to what has nobody looked at. The second question has answers.
What it asks about
- A safety check, firstA small number of findings do not fit the burning mouth pattern and need examining before anything else. If any apply, the tool stops and says so rather than carrying on.
- Your daily patternWhether it is there on waking, builds through the day, or comes and goes. One question, rarely asked, and it points the search in different directions.
- Nerve-type sensationsTingling, numbness, electric-shock feelings. These point toward the small nerves rather than the tissue — which is why a healthy-looking mouth settles nothing.
- A published dryness questionnaireThe Xerostomia Inventory, scored the way a clinician scores it. You get a real number to write down and repeat later.
- What you use every dayMint, alcohol, cinnamon, foaming toothpaste. Recognized irritants for a sore mouth, and the cheapest thing to change.
- What has already been doneThe question the whole tool is built around.
It will not diagnose you. It cannot, and neither can any questionnaire — including the ones in my own office, which is why the workup involves measurement and examination rather than forms alone.
It will not tell you to stop or start any treatment.
And it should never be used to rule something out. A reassuring result here means the questions did not catch anything, not that nothing is there.