Abstract
Twelve patients complaining of taste impairment were studied. Three complained of only decreasing taste acuity, while the others complained of both disturbed taste perception and other oral discomforts such as glossal pain, mouth dryness or ill-fitting of the dentures. Physiologic examinations of the pain and taste thresholds and non-stimulated salivary flow rate, and psychosomatic investigation by counseling and psychological (CMI) test were performed with synchronous laboratory tests for anemia and Fe, Zn and Cu deficiencies. In 7 patients who complained of both impaired taste perception and glossal pain, salivary excretion was severely depressed. Their hypogeusia and glossodynia, except for one case, simultaneously improved or disappeared after brief psychotherapy, accompanied by increasing salivary flow rate but no varying of taste thresholds.
A patient with denture neurosis noticed disappearance of dysgeusia (astringent sensation) by wearing “well-fitted dentures”. Two cases were treated with oral administration of iron, and taste perception became normal in 3 weeks. Oral candidasis of the initial stage, puss discharged from the deep gingival pockets, and unknown pathophysiology were suspected to be the causes of the hypogeusia in each another case of the subjects. These 5 cases without psychosomatic problems showed concomitant falling of taste thresholds with recovery of good taste perception. From these results, it was confirmed that taste impairment may be induced by many kinds of pathologic factors including psychosomatic disorders.
