Coated Tongue

How to Get Rid of a Hairy Tongue

Black Hairy Tongue Hairy tongue may sound like something straight out of a science fiction movie, and it does look every bit as frightening as its name suggests. However, there’s no need to be alarmed. Hairy tongue is harmless and easily treatable.

Hairy tongue, or lingua villosa, is a fairly common condition that is usually caused by an overgrowth of bacteria or fungi in the mouth. This overgrowth prevents your tongue’s skin cells from shedding, aggravating the buildup in your mouth. As the name suggests, it causes your tongue to look black, and in some cases even brown, white, green or any variety of color.

Why is it hairy? Your tongue’s surface is covered by what is generally known as the papilla, which is basically cone-shaped projections on your tongue. There are four kinds of papilla that can be found in your tongue, namely:

the foliate papillae, which can be found at the base of your tongue
the fungiform papilla, which distinguishes the five tastes
the circumvallate papillae, which can be generally found at the middle of your tongue
the filiform papilla, which covers two-thirds of your tongue. It does not contain taste buds, and its function seems to be mainly abrasive in nature.

One of your body’s functions is to shed the outer shell of your skin, called desquamation. This includes your tongue and in the case of hairy tongue, the overgrowth of bacteria or yeast impedes your tongue from shedding old cells to replace them with new ones. This results into hairlike growth or extensions on your tongue, a combination of accumulated bacteria or fungi, and old skin cells.

Causes

Many habits and conditions contribute to the development of hairy tongue, but it’s usually caused by poor oral hygiene translating to bacterial and fungi buildup in our mouths.

Other causes of hairy tongue include smoking tobacco, drinking too much coffee or tea, dehydration, using medication or other products that contain bismuth, excessive use of mouthwashes, alcohol, dry mouths or a lack of saliva and even radiation therapy to the neck or head. It may also be caused by your inability to produce enough saliva in your mouth and dehydration. While hairy tongue is observed to occur more to avid coffee and tea drinkers as well as tobacco smokers, there is no definitive study on what the exact cause of hairy tongue is; however, it’s been generally agreed upon that you have a higher chance of getting hairy tongue when you’re older due to the cumulative effects of those who are long-time smokers and coffee-drinkers.

Hairy tongue may also present itself in people who take intravenous drugs or are infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV.

Hairy tongue is not painful. Most people do not feel any discomfort at the onset of hairy tongue; however, they may feel a tickling feeling at the roof of the mouth, a metallic taste in the mouth, halitosis, nausea, and in severe cases, gagging.

People who have hairy tongue may also be susceptible to a secondary infection of Candida albicans, also known as mouth thrush. You may have developed this if you feel a burning sensation on your tongue.

Treatment

Teeth and Mouth Care. Good oral hygiene is usually the key to preventing and even getting rid of hairy tongue. Brush your teeth three times a day. You should also brush you tongue gently twice a day, using a soft toothbrush. You may also use a tongue scraper or even an inverted tablespoon to thoroughly clean the area. Brushing your tongue will wear away the overgrowth of pappilae that’s built up in your mouth

Water World. Drink plenty of water to keep your mouth clean and to prevent your mouth from going dry. You can also rinse your mouth with diluted peroxide water, that is one part peroxide to five parts water. Rinse it again with water afterwards. You can also use salycilic acid or apply topical retinoids to your tongue.

Creams. Hairy tongue may also be caused by a fungal infection, and you may use antifungal creams to treat it accordingly.

Diet. Alter your diet. Your diet may be composed of excessive soft foods so add some variety and more roughage, as soft food won’t clean off your tongue effectively. This food usually pertains to those with a harder, rougher texture such as apples and pears.

Kick the Habit. Hairy tongue is most likely to occur to those who drink coffee and tea heavily, as well as tobacco-smokers. If you fall under one of these categories, lessen your coffee and tea consumption, if you cannot give it up completely, and smoke less. Giving up tobacco smoking also has other health benefits so do consider doing that as well.

Go Pro. If the suggested treatments do not work, consult your dentist or doctor. If your hairy tongue is caused by bacteria, your doctor may prescribe antibiotics as treatment.

Tthe infected pappilae may also be removed using techniques such as carbon dioxide laser burning and electrodessication. Don’t worry, both procedures require a local anesthetic and the infected tissue will be scraped off using a special tool. Carbon dioxide laser burning is usually used for surgical procedures on your skin because your skin absorbs this light very well.

Keep in mind that hairy tongue is different from a condition called hairy leukoplakia, a condition where the side of your tongue appears to have a white fuzzy or corrugated patch. This is usually seen in severe cases of immunodeficiency — that is, if your immune system is very weak.

Hairy tongue, while widely considered a benign condition, is not something that you’d want waking up to. After all, your hair belongs on your head, not on your tongue. As always, prevention is always the best cure, and practicing good oral hygiene, brushing your teeth and tongue twice a day, keeping yourself well-hydrated, and having moderate, if not less consumption of coffee, tea and tobacco, will go a long way in helping you get rid of that nasty hairy tongue.

Article complements of howtogetridofstuff.com.

Editor’s Note: As noted above, Black Hairy Tongue can be a result of Fungal infections. These include Candida or Yeast. If you look closely at the picture above you can see the coating on the tongue is actually white around the edges. In order for fungal infections to become this serious it has to be systemic (throughout your system) already. Simply treating the symptom (the tongue) is short-sighted and probably won’t work in the long run (although it may help in the short run). Watch this brief video on treating systemic problems.

Is There a Cure for Geographic Tongue?

How to Cure Candida

Watch this Video on All the problems Ryan had because of Systemic Candida.

Click for More Info on How to Cure Candida

Is There a Cure for Geographic Tongue?

Yeast Infection Knowledge – The Truth Behind Your Yeast Infection

Educating yourself about your candida infection is the first and most important step in curing this painful, annoying and relatively dangerous chronic condition and taking responsibility over your health and well-being.

Although yeast infection (known by the names of Candida, Monilia or Thrush) is in fact a very common condition, (as three out of four women develop it at some point in their lifetimes), it is little discussed. Most people regard candida infection as a ‘on the surface’ problem that should be treated with creams and antibiotics whereas few are aware of its potentially risky complications.

Yeast Infection is first and foremost an internal problem. Like most chronic conditions, there is never one cause for this fungal problem and thus yeast infection cannot be permanently eliminated using medications or creams that work superficially and fail to tackle the root factors that trigger the formation of candida infection in the first place. Continue reading →

Adrenal Fatigue vs. Adrenal Failure

There is a big difference between adrenal fatigue and adrenal failure. Adrenal failure as the word implies is a total shutting down of the adrenal glands resulting in Pigmented Tongue and/or Addison’s Disease.

Adrenal fatigue is simply a case of overworking your adrenal glands through everything from an over use of stimulants like caffeine to stress and simple things like constant distractions just “wearing you down”. Typical symptoms of adrenal fatigue are:

Waking up exhausted and struggling to get out of bed.
Feeling like a “zombie”, never quite alert
Inability to focus
Colds hang around for weeks zapping what little strength you had
Decreased Libido
Failing short term memory

Unfortunately, most people when faced with tired adrenal glands do the exact WRONG thing making their systems worse and further draining their poor over-worked adrenal glands. The adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys and are sort of the size of a triangular walnut. They release hormones the hormones cortisol and adrenaline. Most people are familiar with adrenaline and the rush that comes with the fight or flight reaction. But cortisol is equally important in fighting off disease and inflamation. And many corticosteroids drugs are simply a synthetic version of cortisol.

Unfortunately, when you take these synthetic corticosteroids you actually supress the natural production of cortisol. Which is why you absolutely have to taper off of them slowly or you can permanently damage your adrenal glands. I had personal experience almost doing that myself. I had been on Prednisone^®for a long period of time due to Crohn’s disease and then was away from home without my pills for a day and a half. And when I went out into a very hot day the additional stress made me feel something I had never felt before or since. Everyone knows what a kidney punch feels like and this was something like that. Somewhere deep inside my lower back (at the top of my kidneys) the only way i can describe it, is that it felt like someone was squeezing a lemon and wringing it dry. It was very strange! Fortunately, I was able to get my pills shortly after that and I didn’t suffer any long term damage but I was fortunate because it could have been extremely serious with me ending up with Addison’s disease.

The Adrenal Gland is made up of the adrenal cortex and the medulla. The adrenal cortex actually has three layers with three distinct functions. The outer layer produces hormones that regulate the blood pressure. The middle layer produces the cortisol. And the inner layer produces DHEA which is a precursor to the sex hormones. Inside the adrenal cortex is the mudulla which is where the adrenaline and noradrenaline are produced.

Noradrenaline is responsible for the fight or flight response boosting attention, increasing heart rate, triggering the release of glucose to provide quick energy, and increasing blood flow to the muscles. In modern society these responses can be to non-threating situations like having to deal with your boss or even just watching a movie. When they are constantly triggered but not used it can result in adrenal exhaustion. Basically the adrenals are over worked and under paid. Resulting in the symptoms listed above. By “underpaid” I mean that they aren’t receiving the nutrition they need to be able to do their job.

By addressing the overworked and underpaid issues you can drastically improve you energy levels, feeling of alertness, immunity, and libido.

One of the best books I’ve seen on natural ways to boost adrenal function for those with reduced adrenal function is “The Adrenal Fatigue Formula” for more info check out their website.

You will have new appreciation for your health, in particularly your adrenal glands and the sweet and powerful energy they provide you each and every day. Vibrant energy is a dear friend that once gone is sorely missed.

Adrenal Fatigue Book

You might also want to check out Super Immunity. In this book, some things seemed obvious to me at first (but then I’ve been studying health and nutrition a long time.) So I’m not sure whether these things would be obvious to everyone. Interestingly some of his hints were the same things my grandmother told me many years ago but I never knew why but Jon gave some very good reasons for them. And bringing them back to mind has made me more conscious of trying to do them again.

But it’s not all old information. I learned something in just the first chapter! Did you know that three quarters of your energy is used to process your food? I didn’t! Jon goes on to explain how to make your digestion more efficient so you can free up that energy for other things. If you’d like more information about Jon’s book “Super Immunity” go to: Super Immunity

You may also find my book Healthy Tongue Secrets useful in boosting your overall health.

Is There a Cure for Geographic Tongue?

Do You Have a White Fuzzy Patch on Your Tongue?

By Tim McMahon

White Fuzzy patches on the tongue could be one of two or three different things.The first is called Thrush. It is caused by an overgrowth of Yeast or “Candida Albicans” in the body. It can be the result of antibiotics killing off the “good bacteria” that keeps the yeast in check. Yeast is generally found only on the top surface of the tongue although patches can occcasionally be found on the sides of the mouth, lips and various other moist surfaces and on other parts of the body. Often babies will get thrush on their tongue and mouth and candida can also be a cause of ”diaper rash”.	Thrush Spots
Thrush begins as small white fuzzy patches on the tongue or only “spots”. Although if left unchecked the spots will get larger until they cover the whole tongue. Once it gains hold it can result in a quite thick patch of white fuzz. For more info see Thrush Tongue.	Thick Thrush Coating
If the white fuzzy patches are on the sides of the tongue rather than than on the top, it is quite possible that it is Hairy Leukoplakia rather than thrush. For more info see Hairy Leukoplakia.	Hairy Leukoplakia
If on the other hand the patches are bald and surrounded by white rings it would be geographic tongue. For more info see Geographic Tongue.	Geographic Tongue with Rings

As far as the white coating…

The papillary structure of the top of the tongue provides many crevices and a large surface area where microorganisms and food particles, etc. can accumulate. These micro-organisms of the tongue can influence the make up of the flora of the entire mouth. Normally the top of the tongue is either pinkish or has a thin white coating. By thin I mean it is almost clear and not fuzzy at all. Almost like milk.

More Resources: