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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)
- Fissured Tongue (American Academy of Oral Medicine) Also in Spanish
- Geographic Tongue (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research)
- Leukoplakia (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research)
- Yellow Tongue (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research)
Images
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Hairy Leukoplakia
(National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research)
- Hairy Tongue (Logical Images)
Health Check Tools
- Mouth or Tongue Lesions (DSHI Systems)
- Mouth or Tongue Swelling (DSHI Systems)
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 ArticlesReferences and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)
Reference Desk
- Find an ENT (American Academy of Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery)
Children
- Tongue-Tie (Ankyloglossia) (American Academy of Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery)
- Your Tongue (Nemours Foundation) Also in Spanish
Patient Handouts
- Geographic tongue Also in Spanish
- Glossitis Also in Spanish
- Leukoplakia Also in Spanish
- Macroglossia Also in Spanish
- Tongue biopsy Also in Spanish
- Tongue problems Also in Spanish
- Tongue tie Also in Spanish
