The tongue is an important part of the body. The tongue is made up of a group of different muscles. Without a tongue, we are not able to taste any food, even not able to swallow and speak. Health expert suggests a healthy tongue color looks like pink. Our tongue is covered by many small nodules called papillae. Papillae are small bumps, which makes the tongue rough. Thousands of taste buds are the collections of the many nerve cells which cover the surfaces of the papillae and these nerves are running into the brain.
Diseases which affects tongue:
- Tongue-tie: Tongue-tie is a condition present at birth that restricts the tongue’s range of motion. The lingual frenulum is attaching with the bottom line of the tongue in the tongue-tie. Due to tongue-tie eating, speaking and swallows process can be affected by the child.
- Thrush: It is a yeast infection, which grows over the surface of the mouth and tongue. In this disease bumpy white patches develop on the tongue. It can occur in very young or elder people by taking steroids or with suppressed immune systems.
- Macroglossia: In the medical terminology macroglossia is the term of abnormal enlargement of the tongue. In macroglossia symptoms associated like drooling, speech impairment, difficulty eating, snoring, airway obstruction, abnormal growth of the jaw and teeth. It is an uncommon disease, and very rally occurs in children.
- Geographic tongue: In this condition ridges and colored sports are started to appearing over the surface area of the tongue and its appearance change periodically. Geographic tongue is a harmless condition.
- Burning tongue syndrome: It is a common problem. In this disease, a burning sensation creates on the tongue and other areas of the mouth. This syndrome may be caused by a mild nerve problem.
- Hairy tongue: Due to the overgrow of papillae, tongue surface give an appearance like white or black color. Scraping off the papillae corrects this harmless condition.
- Herpes stomatitis: In this condition, a virus called herpes can be the region of cold sores on the tongue. Mostly cold sores occur on the lip.
- Lichen planus: This is a harmless condition, which can affect the skin or the mouth by the attacking immune system on the skin and lining of the mouth.
Reported by Dr. Himani