Glossitis Causes

Lately, your tongue suddenly feels all swollen up and it has turned red like beef meat! You also cannot feel the rough side of your tongue anymore. It has become all smooth. Not only that, but you are also having problems while eating or speaking and sometimes you can also feel some tissue like substances in your mouth. Well! These could be the symptoms of glossitis. You are probably wondering what glossitis is and what are the glossitis causes. Given below are the answers to your questions.

Common Causes

Glossitis is a kind of tongue infection. Burns while eating hot food, or eating tobacco, deficiencies like vitamins and minerals, viral or even bacterial infections or use of certain medications, can lead to glossitis. In this case, the papillae i.e. the finger like projections on the upper side of our tongue, are lost. What we are left with, is a smooth, red tongue surface. Some of the conditions that could incite glossitis include:

• If a person is allergic to certain ingredients in toothpastes, or mouth fresheners or mouth wash, etc.
• If a person is suffering from deficiencies like iron, vitamin B, or he/she is suffering from certain problems like oral lichen planus or aphthous ulcers.
• If the person has had any kind of bacterial or viral infection.
• If he/she has injured his/her tongue with hot food or sharp teeth or accidentally bit the tongue.
• It is also a hereditary disease and if your parents have it, then there are chances that even you might have it.
• Eating too much tobacco, or excessive smoking also causes glossitis.

Atrophic Glossitis

As a person ages, that is the time when they get atrophic glossitis. They experience red tongue swelling and experience a burning sensation while eating or even while speaking.

• Lack of proper nutrition is an important cause for this type of glossitis. If your body lacks vitamins B12 or riboflavin or iron, then it often leads to atrophic glossitis.
• Secondly, if your tongue keeps getting rubbed against a rough surface such as a denture or maybe a sharp tooth.
• Again, yeast infection such as oral thrush, also causes atrophic glossitis.
• If the immune system is weak, then it encourages the growth of yeast over the tongue which leaves a white tongue.
• Atrophic glossitis can be treated so if you show the signs, then go visit a doctor immediately
• This disease is common in the third world countries where many people suffer from malnutrition.

Migratory Glossitis

Due to the irregular patches on the tongue making it almost look like a world map, this disease is also called the 'geographic tongue'. Some also call this condition 'benign migratory glossitis'.

• The causes of this glossitis is still not known. It might be due to vitamin B12 deficiency or maybe because of a yeast infection which takes places due to a weak immune system.
• This kind of glossitis is very painful and often when you eat hot and spicy food, it hurts a lot.

Median Rhomboid Glossitis

When the fetus develops, a structure which is called the 'tuberculum impar', withdraws when the two parts of the fetus's tongue joins. If this does not happen then the structure remains between the two parts of the tongue and thus the child has a bald patch like structure on the tongue. This is the main reason behind median rhomboid glossitis.

So now you know what are the various acute glossitis. Some of these causes, such trapping of the tuberculum impar, is involuntary. But as far as possible, if we can control the other causes such as tobacco, excessive smoking, not taking proper healthy diet, etc., then we are reducing the chances of getting glossitis. So eat healthy and stay healthy!