So, um, how's your tongue? (Unofficial research. Very.)
How's your tongue?
About a year out from surgery I started to notice sometimes my sense of taste was a bit odd, kind of off. Later out, it even felt a bit sore. I started seeing, on and off, bald patches on the top where the taste buds were gone, and it was smooth, bare flesh underneath. The bald patches would grow, change shapes, merge together, or not, and sometime the bare spots would get rather raw and sore. Then it would slowly clear up and go back to normal, like over the course of a few weeks.
Fast forward another year or so. This pattern - funny taste, bald patches, bare spots with tenderness -
("Man, my tongue hurts")
("Your... what?")
("You heard me. My tongue is killing me.")
("... only you, Koko.")
- followed by slow healing, continued. But finally I was actually in my doctor's office when it was looking icky, and she took a look and said. "Thrush."
Which, I'm happy to say, was incorrect, but I love her anyway. I looked at pictures on google images of thrush - - and no, no, no, excuse me for a minute - - that's not what was happening in my mouth.... thank god. But there were a couple of pictures much further down the page, and I went hmmm, and clicked.
"Geographic Tongue". Bingo.
Now, before you go running off to look, I should tell you geographic Tongue is not particularly pretty. But compared to Thrush images, which - oh no - excuse me - - are really - oh my - - awful, these images are a bouquet of posies.
But here's the reason I'm here.
From Wiki: "Causes vary, but may include zinc or vitamin B deficiencies, allergies, and hormonal changes."
And then I read that people with Celiac Disease often present with Geographic Tongue. One of the issues with having Celiacs is that it causes changes in the bowel leading to malabsorption of nutrients. So I'm thinking about the vitamin deficiencies, and the association with malabsorption, and I started wondering about WLS's nutrient absorption reduction, and here I am.
So, let me be the first person to ask you: how's your tongue doing? Anyone else out there noticing changes in their tongues some time after WLS?
on 10/22/12 2:46 pm
on 10/22/12 2:48 pm
but I did experience this while pregnant when I would eat chocolate. my doc thought it could be a hormone change that caused an almost allergy type reaction. it really does hurt!
It took about 6 months after having my son to have it stop completely. but before then it would appear, last 1-3 weeks, go away and come back a few weeks later (always after eating chocolate).
I hope you get it figured out soon!
Height:5'1.5 RNY:11/30/11 HW:307 SW:234 CW:136 GW:140 (LOST 73 Lbs. PRE-OP)
First ultra: Stone Mill 50 miler 11/15/14 13:44:38, First Full Marathon: Marine Corps 10/27/13 4:57:11, Half Marathon PR 2:04:43 at Shamrock VA Beach Half-Marathon, 12/2/12 First Half-Marathon 2:32:47, 5K PR Run Under the Lights 5K 27:23 on 11/23/13, 10K PR 52:53 Pike's Peek 10K 4/21/13, (1st timed run) Accumen 8K 51:09 10/14/12.
First ultra: Stone Mill 50 miler 11/15/14 13:44:38, First Full Marathon: Marine Corps 10/27/13 4:57:11, Half Marathon PR 2:04:43 at Shamrock VA Beach Half-Marathon, 12/2/12 First Half-Marathon 2:32:47, 5K PR Run Under the Lights 5K 27:23 on 11/23/13, 10K PR 52:53 Pike's Peek 10K 4/21/13, (1st timed run) Accumen 8K 51:09 10/14/12.
Huh... And that was my next stop, too. I was going to try upping my B vitamins and zinc, since that's what they do in the UK for this. My lab work shoed my vitamins were all in the normal range, fwiw.
As a further note of interest - yeah, I know, to who? - I started getting small, liquid-filled, flat blisters on the roof of my mouth around the same time, and now I've learned that it's part of the same thing. When you have Geographic Tongue, and also get sores in other parts of your mouth, it gets the very fancy name of "Migratory Stomatitis".
This, in spite of its name, has zero to do with your stomach. Which seems to be born out by the responses here.