The impact of psychological testing on the patients suffering from stomatopyrosis

Stomatopyrosis is commonly associated with stressful situations, which implies the importance of psychological conditions of the patients with this symptom. Patients suffering from burning mouth syndrome suffered from some psychical disturbances as well. The fact that depression and anxiety are closely connected with stomatopyrosis has been scientifically confirmed. The data which systematically led to this conclusion suggest the possibility of the existence of a psychogenic disturbance as an aetiological factor which leads to stomatopyrosis. Research which might be conducted in order to relate psychogenic disturbances with stomatopyrosis by means of various drugs and procedures, might provide an insight into the relatedness of these factors, which would enable us to treat the cause and not the consequence. This research has been directed towards establishing this "relatedness" by means of psychopharmatics and psychotherapy, and has been confirmed by means of psychological depression and anxiety tests. The research has been conducted on 120 respondents suffering from stomatopyrosis, who were also, as previously diagnosed, suffering from a psychical disturbance. The respondents were divided into 4 groups. Each group contained 30 respondents suffering from stomatopyrosis as the basic symptom, but with different psychogenic disturbances. These groups were: 1) antidepressants, 2) anxiolytics, 3) autogenic training and 4) control group. A detailed clinical and psychiatric check-up was conducted before the treatment started, and was repeated several times in different intervals: after a month, after two months and after four months. Respondents are still undergoing a therapy. Subjective assessment of the intensity of the burning sensation was obtained according to Visual analogue scale and two psychological questionnaires (depression test and anxiety test). Conclusion is: 1) Antidepressants and anxiolytic drugs have a prominent role in the treatment of stomatopyrosis. Psychological tests conducted after a four-month period have shown improvement--there was a decrease in anxiety--7.5%-8.8%, while depression has in some of the tested groups completely disappeared. At the same time, subjective evaluation of the intensity of the symptom has, according to VAS, showed a fall from 6.93-7.8 cm to 2.13-3.0 cm. At the beginning of the treatment, symptoms were described as "pretty often" with 36.7%-76.7% respondents, and as "permanent" with 23.3%-63.3% respondents. At the end of the treatment, the most frequent description regarding the frequency of the symptoms was "very rarely". 2) Autogenic training--psychotherapeutic anxiolytic technique--is the therapy of choice as far as stomatopyrosis is concerned, as it both eliminates the problems and emotionally rehabilitates the patient. 3) As far as the therapeutic progress is concerned, it can be taken as the "progress" of the time when the symptoms appear: during the treatment, the frequency and the duration of the symptoms have been shortened at night, while their occurrence during the day has been reported as relatively more frequent.