The author's reply

Abstract

Sir I thank Richard Graham for pointing out another rare aetiological factor in Burning Mouth Syndrome (BMS). I think he needs to appreciate that in writing an article for Dental Update of necessity one has to take a general viewpoint and I therefore was not attempting to be encyclopaedic. What I did attempt to do was suggest management protocols based on scientific studies and not anecdotes. Spontaneous remission in BMS, for example, has been reported and may have been the case in the patient they quote. Incidentally, I was incorrectly quoted in the BDJ letter¹ and am attributed to report “Oral symptoms seem to occur in approximately half of females with climacteric problems”. What I did say in the BMJ paper² was that of 104 female patients “in only six were the symptoms of burning mouth syndrome eventually attributcd solely to the climacteric”.

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