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Summary
Your tongue helps you taste, swallow, and chew. You also use it to speak. Your tongue is made up of many muscles. The upper surface contains your taste buds.
Problems with the tongue include
- Pain
- Swelling
- Changes in color or texture
- Abnormal movement or difficulty moving the tongue
- Taste problems
These problems can have many different causes. Treatment depends on the underlying problem.
Related Issues
- So You Want to Pierce Your Tongue? (Academy of General Dentistry)
Specifics
- Black, Hairy Tongue (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research) Also in Spanish
- Fissured Tongue (American Academy of Oral Medicine) Also in Spanish
- Yellow Tongue (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research) Also in Spanish
Images
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Hairy Leukoplakia
(National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research)
- Hairy Tongue (Logical Images)
Clinical Trials
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ClinicalTrials.gov: Glossitis
(National Institutes of Health)
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ClinicalTrials.gov: Glossitis, Benign Migratory
(National Institutes of Health)
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ClinicalTrials.gov: Tongue Diseases
(National Institutes of Health)
Journal Articles References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)
- Article: Death by histone deacetylase inhibitor quisinostat in tongue squamous cell carcinoma...
- Article: Oral mucosal lesions in psoriatic patients based on disease severity and...
- Article: Role of Twist and Podoplanin in Partial Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition in Oral...
- Tongue Disorders -- see more articles
Reference Desk
- Find an ENT (American Academy of Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery)
Children
- Your Tongue (Nemours Foundation) Also in Spanish
Patient Handouts
- Geographic tongue (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
- Glossitis (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
- Leukoplakia (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
- Macroglossia (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
- Tongue biopsy (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
- Tongue problems (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
- Tongue tie (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish