Geographic Tongue Update

My daughter's GT has improved a lot. There are still occasional red patches on her tongue but they don't bother her much anymore. As a matter of fact, she now enjoys eating some spicy foods but keeps away from acidic fruits, especially pineapple. When I looked at her tongue today I only saw one red patch (Hooray!).

So what helped her? I really don't know! She takes Vitamin C occasionally, uses ordinary toothpaste, occasionally takes antihistamine (loratidine) for her allergies and stays away from acidic fruits. Nothing special at all. I completely forgot about it until I checked on my blog and realized that my post about Geographic Tongue got the most number of comments.

To help those who have GT or those who know somebody who's suffering from it I will list down comments from my readers who learned to cope with it. Read on...

stephsali said...

I also have geographic tongue. I seen a doctor for it when I was a teenager. He assured me that I was fine and that the cause was unknown. He told me taking a multivitamin daily would often put it into remission or at least help somewhat. It worked!! If i take my vitamin daily I rarely have an episode, and if I do it is very mild. If I stop the vitamins, my geographic tongue returns in just a few days. I hope this info helps, it sure helped me!

Alyson said...

I'm 32 now and have had this for almost 10 years (my 5 year old nephew has it as well).

Took me a long time to figure out that Oregano is the actual culprit in a lot of the foods that irritate my tongue.

Photoshop Diva said...

I've had GT for as long as I can remember, since preschool maybe? My mom & dad BOTH have it so I didn't stand a chance. I am now 28 and find my irritation 'spells' are more frequent. SImilar to others, I react to tomatoes, pineapple, walnuts, eggplant, most citrus/acidic foods and who knows what else.

I was just reading suggestions on another site that involve switching to non-tartar-control toothpastes, swishing with peroxide, and applying the contents of a broken Benadryl capsule directly to the patches.

Anonymous said...

I think I have a cure. It is working for me. First, I bought a natural toothpaste with NO SLS. Next I always swish hydrogen peroxide around in my mouth before I brush my teeth. I took the following supplements. You can get them at a health food store. L-Lysine- 1000 mg. 2 x a day. Super Quercetin 500 mg 2 x a day. Homeopathic Sulfur 12c as directed on bottle. You must take it regularly for at least 3 weeks. I took it for about 1 month. I have been free of pain and the markings for about 3 weeks. My doctor recommended the supplements.

Anonymous said...

Well, I was reading about this and realized that not too many people actually suffer from this. I found out what it was called when I went to a dentist checkup about 6 years ago. I knew it was worse when I ate things that were spicy or acidic. Also I noticed someone commented about it becoming worse when they drank and smoked. I quit smoking about 5 years ago because of it. It used to cause infections on my tongue. I definately don't recommend drinking or smoking if you suffer from this condition. You'd only be asking for problems.

Anonymous said...

I suffer too from geographic tongue and fissured tongue. I'm now 31, but I have had this condition since I was a child. Like many with GT, my mother was told not to worry about it.

At present, I now also deal with burning mouth syndrome (may or may not be related). I know that drinking orange juice caused me to get canker sores. I stopped drinking it because of that. I decided to recently start (again) Vitamin C supplements. Geographic and fissured tongue came back (it had been gone for a long while). So now I am going to test a 2 week no Vitamin C diet. To see if the tongue clears up entirely, and if the burning mouth calms down.

It's worth a shot, but I am telling you folks, Vitamin C definitely has a drastic impact on my mouth.

renea said...

My 6 year old son has had this for years. He also has rally bad eczema and I was told that GT and eczma could be a milk allergy. So I took him off milk and with in a few days it was gone. He has never had any pain in his tongue with foods. And his fav food is pineapple.

Mike said...

I've had GT for over 5 years now and after going to several doctors, my dentist was very helpful as far as steering me in the right direction. Here's what I do: brush teeth and tongue (and scrape tongue with tongue scraper) twice a day and floss at night. I also use the prescription mouthwash Periogard which has a generic brand as well--this is the hard part because it tastes AWFUL, especially sitting in your mouth at night. My theory, at least in my case, is that my tongue is extra sensitive (allergic, really) to bacteria and over-reacts leading to GT.

I still get occasional flare-ups but only when I don't follow the regimen religiously. Getting back on the regimen gets rid of it quickly. It also has the benefit of impeccable oral hygiene! Anyway, this worked for me.

Geographic Tongue

When my older daughter was still a baby I noticed some reddish patches with white borders on her tongue. Being a first time mom then, I thought it was just a sort of residue from milk. Still, I directed our Pedia's attention to it on one of her regular check-ups. The doctor simply said that my daughter has mapping on her tongue. She did not elaborate and did not put much emphasis on it so I presumed it was nothing to be bothered about.

When my daughter was older, there were instances while we were eating when she would cry and say, "I have ouch on my tongue." Upon inspection, I would notice the smooth like patches on her tongue again. It really puzzled me because there were times when the patches are not there at all. After some time, I had observed that my daughter would complain about hurting her tongue especially when we were eating food with spices or with sour taste. This prompted me to do a bit of research which led me to sites about geographic tongue. Finally, my daughter's condition has a name.

Geographic tongue or benign migratory glossitis, a condition affecting the tongue has no known cause but tends to run in families. I don't have it and no one in our family has it. My husband doesn't have it so does his parents and siblings. So, I really don't know where my daughter got it from.

Geographic tongue is a benign condition. It is not dangerous to health, it is self-limiting and it does not require treatment. There are foods though that could aggravate the condition as I had observed with my daughter. Avoidance of foods that could exacerbate or cause pain to the tongue is therefore recommended.

Geographic tongue is common to people with psoriasis and also to those who have allergies, eczema as well as asthma. It occurs in around 2% of people in all ages, sexes and races and affects females three times more than males and more often appears in adults than in children.

If you observe closely someone who has a geographic tongue, you will notice that the pattern changes every time. It does look like an ever-changing map. In my daughter's case, sometimes there are bright red patches, sometimes they simply look like bald spots and there are also times when I don't see anything at all.

I'm no longer worried about my daughter's geographic tongue after learning more about it and I'm instilling in her the idea that it's not something she should be ashamed about. I do hope however that it will completely go away so that she could explore more her taste in food.