It’s standard procedure for a doctor to ask you to open your mouth and stick out your tongue at your annual physical. You may not think anything of it, but most physicians go through a checklist upon inspecting a patient’s tongue. A healthy tongue has a pinkish color, and any other discolorations or textures can potentially indicate an underlying health condition.

What if you could correct your overall health by simply examining your own tongue? Not only would it save you the hassle of going to your doctor’s office, but it could also help you address a problem before it progresses into something worse. Learning to read your tongue can help you know if you are sufficiently hydrated, suffering from diabetes, deficient in vitamins, or even dealing with an autoimmune disease. You’ll find the following tongue appearances helpful in your quest to managing your overall health.

White Coating

A white tongue or a tongue with white and pasty patches can be the result of a tongue infection, but it can also indicate a bacterial overgrowth, like candida. If it is a tongue infection, brush your tongue for a week or two to see if it goes away. If it doesn’t go away, it is most likely an overgrowth of yeast, which often causes oral thrush.

Geographic Tongue

The reason it is referred to as a geographic tongue is because the tongue appears map-like. You will most likely see smooth, red patches that have slightly raised borders, almost like little islands on the tongue. Geographic tongue is not caused by infection or cancer, and it affects about one to three percent of people. The cause is unknown and it tends to affect middle-aged or older adults.

Black And Hairy Tongue

It can be quite alarming to look at your tongue and see that it looks black or hairy-like. The tongue isn’t hairy, by the way; it just appears that way. The cause is typically benign. In fact, it is often associated with antibiotic use, cancer therapies, yeast infection, diabetes, or poor oral hygiene. This also occurs when the cells on the tongue grow faster than the body can shed them. It will most likely go away on its own.

Severely Dry Mouth

People who take diuretics, allergy medications, or blood pressure medication can suffer from an uncomfortable cracked tongue. If you must continue to take medication, it is imperative to stay sufficiently hydrated, avoid caffeine, and possibly brush with special toothpastes like Biotene for extreme cases.

Sore Spots

If you have ulcers or canker sores in the mouth, it is possible for them to creep up onto the tongue. Some people are predisposed to develop sore spots, while others never get them. Sore spots can often coincide with a cold, fever, or after eating a lot of citrus fruits. If a canker sore is the culprit, sore spots will disappear in about 7-10 days. You should consult your doctor if sore spots last longer than two to four weeks.

Redness

A rosy red tongue can often be caused by a sore throat, or strep throat in rare occasions. If strep throat is the culprit, you will most likely need to take antibiotics to remedy the issue. When the tongue is red and you don’t have a sore throat or fever, it could indicate a nutrient deficiency in B12, iron, or folate. You can get blood work done to determine this and plan how to up your nutrient intake from there.

Webbed Or Striped Look

When the immune system attacks cells in the mouth, it is possible for the tongue to appear webbed or striped. For some reason, middle-aged women are most susceptible to this. If you don’t experience any pain, a doctor may not need to treat it; rather, he/she will monitor symptoms. Catch it early because you don’t want to develop oral cancer in those areas.

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Geographic tongue is an inflammatory condition of the tongue affecting approximately 2% of the population. It is characterized by discolored regions of taste buds or sometimes even cracks in the tongue (which do not go all the way through). The condition is usually chronic and frequently manifests after eating any of a range of exacerbating foods, or during times of stress, illness, or hormonal surges (particularly in women just before menstruating). It is also known as “Benign migratory glossitis,” “Benign migratory stomatitis,” “Glossitis areata exfoliativa,” “Glossitis areata migrans,” “Lingua geographica,” “Stomatitis areata migrans,” and “Transitory benign plaques of the tongue.”

Basically, Geographic Tongue is nothing but a sensor on the tongue that lets us know that the colon and stomach are greatly taxed and toxic. The root cause of the disease originates at the colon by way of the stomach, however, we also can and must treat the tongue as well, because the tongue becomes inflamed due to inflammation of the stomach and colon, but mostly the stomach, hence the term “Stomatitis” (Stomatitis areata migrans).

Causes and Risk Factors

Geographic Tongue is the result of a poor diet (an overly acidic one) that leads to disease in the body so as with all disease, there must be an understanding of the disease (causes) followed by remedy in the form of modified diet and supplemental therapy (herbal therapy).

Causes can include:

• Genetics or family history
• Fissured tongue
• Oral contraceptive use
• Diabetes
• Allergies
• Compromised immune system
• Stress
• History of skin disorders

Symptoms

Symptoms of Geographic Tongue are:

• Smooth, red patches on the tongue surface
• Change in location of the patches
• Discomfort, pain or increased redness while eating

Healing Options

There are several ways to heal Geographic Tongue naturally:

• Don’t smoke
• Don’t drink alcoholic beverages
• Avoid eating hot or spicy foods
• Avoid eating food at high temperatures (let food cool a bit before eating)
• Avoid salty or acidic foods
• Avoid dental products (toothpaste) with tartar-control additives, whitening agents and/or lots of flavoring.

Dietary Intervention

The diet must be modified to a strictly raw foods vegan diet. An acidic diet is modified by an alkaline diet. This is very key to remedy in healing from all degenerative disease. Alkaline foods mostly consist of vegetables (green ones mainly) and fruits (including so-called acidic ones but in the case of geographic tongue you want to avoid citrus fruit which could exacerbate the condition or problem).

We have plenty of articles on proper diet modification on our website in our “Articles” section, What is: Raw Foods? and Acidic-vs Acid Forming Please read them to learn more about proper diet modification.

If you have a juicer, drink plenty of vegetable juice (daily). Vegetable juice is very therapeutic as well as nutritional.

The best water to drink in healing from any degenerative disease including Geographic Tongue is alkaline water. Alkaline water is very therapeutic. So start drinking plenty of alkaline water (6-8 glasses per day). We also have an article on alkaline water located in our “Articles” section.

Adding liquid chlorophyll to each glass of drinking is also very helping due to its alkaline nature. Dherbs.com also highly recommends that a sessions of colonics be performed (as well as enemas). The colon must be targeted for healing in Geographical Tongue.

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