Geographic Tongue

[Jlisa]

What causes a geographic tongue and can it be corrected somehow?

[Buttercuppy]

Hi Jlisa, I have geographic tongue and it's something they really don't know what causes it. Some doctors say acid reflux could trigger it, some say it's yeast, some say it's acidic foods or spicy foods. It varies from person to person. I went to my ENT and he gave me a prescription for Nystalin or Nystatin one or the other but it didn't work so now I know mine isn't yeast related. It comes and goes and they say there isn't really a cure but I've found gargling with peroxide to help; also use a toothpaste that is SLS free as this is a mouth irritant, that also has baking soda, peroxide, and fluoride. This site has been a great help to me: http://msinow.com/home/geographic_tongue.htm

[Jlisa]

Thank you for responding to my inquiry. The graphic tongue isn't something that bothers me in the scheme of things but I always wondered what caused it and if there was a fix. About 5 minutes after I posted my question I heard an article about Graphic tongue - how odd. Apparently, vitamin B helps. As it were, I was already taking vitamin B6 for a deficiency I was recently made aware of and I do believe there is an improvement. Slight but noticeable. I'll be curious to see in several months from now if it goes away or is remarkably better. Stranger things have happened.

[nogeographictongue]

So I've been dealing with Geographic Tongue since I was 18 years old....I'm now 36.  A few years ago I got really tired of haveing those bare red shapes on my tongue so I started to do some research....In my travels, I discovered that some people develop it when they have a defficiency in some of their minerals....especially Zinc...I started supplementing with Zinc, 50 mg per day and there was radical improvement in it...So then I started to test my theory.   After I would stop taking the zinc, it wasn't long and the graphic tongue would come back....when I took the zinc again it would go away.

So that was great...but then I was going to have to be on a zinc supplement all the time.

The one day I came across an article about how Soy and Soy products can interfer with the absorption of zinc from the intestinal track.  Hmmmmm, I thought....I eat a lot of soy....Tofu, Soy Latte's a Soy Latte every day....So I cut the soy out of my diet just as a trial.

My geographic tongue remained gone...but I was still taking the zinc supplement.

Then I cut out my zinc supplement....Lo and behold my geographic tongue still remained gone.

It's been gone now for months and months, no supplementation with zinc and no soy.

Go figure!