dear melisa,
I am having this same issue it is similiar to catching parts of the mouth lips and tongue on fire,
either - my pH is off? I have to buy some pH paper - it will tell you almost immediately... also you may have thrush, candida in your mouth - dry mouth -
may be hormonal, could be a reaction from medicines or antibiotics etc...
can be helped if you know if you do not have enough pottassium or iron in your diet...
I am researching this for myself so - I will post whatever I may find that is helpful - the links below really aren't that helpful?

http://tinyurl.com/2zxltt -on the right hand side of the page you will see other studies about burning mouth- if it is candida your tongue and mouth will be white not pink - then you will need to take (kefir) if you are allergic to milk / their are tablets with different types of frierndly life saving bacterias that need to be restore to your gut -intestinal tract so your body will once again be in harmony -


take care - I know how much it hurts... do chew gum / but not w/ aspartame
in it - do eat virgin cocnut oil, and organic pears help which makes me feel
that my pH balance is off... also my age -I am going through perimenapause
my good friend who is a medical researcher has been training me over the last several years - so I do what I have been taught, and have found some awesome information...



Burning mouth syndrome: will better understanding yield better management?Maltsman-Tseikhin A, Moricca P, Niv D.
Center for Pain Medicine, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel. davidniv@tasmc.health.gov.il

"Burning mouth syndrome" (BMS) refers to a chronic orofacial pain disorder usually unaccompanied by mucosal lesions or other clinical signs of organic disease.
Burning Mouth Syndrome is typically characterized by a continuous, spontaneous, and often intense burning sensation as if the mouth or tongue were scalded or on fire. Burning mouth syndrome is a relatively common condition.
The estimated prevalence of BMS reported in recent studies ranges between 0.7 and 4.6% of the general population. About 1.3 million American adults, mostly women in the postmenopausal period, are afflicted with BMS.

The etiology of this disorder is poorly understood even though new evidence for a possible neuropathic pathogenesis of idiopathic BMS is emerging. Burning mouth syndrome may present as an idiopathic condition (primary BMS type) distinct from the symptom of oral burning that can potentially arise from various local or systemic abnormalities (secondary BMS type), including nutritional deficiencies, hormonal changes associated with menopause, local oral infections, denture-related lesions, xerostomia, hypersensitivity reactions, medications, and systemic diseases including diabetes mellitus. In more than a third of patients, multiple, concurrent causes of BMS may be identified. It is important to note that the diagnosis of BMS should be established only after all other possible causes have been ruled out. Professional delay in diagnosing, referring, and appropriately managing of BMS patients occurs frequently. Treatment should be tailored to each patient and it is recommended to practice the treatment in a multidisciplinary facility. This article discusses our current understanding of the etiology and pathogenesis of BMS. The authors have tried to emphasize new pharmacological approaches to manage this challenging disorder.

PMID: 17559486 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
http://tinyurl.com/2zxltt