I’m in need of alla your good thoughts. Never thought I’d be here.
I’m headed to an oral surgeon tomorrow afternoon for evaluation of the weirdo wacko owie on the right side of my tongue, what has been not OK for lo these several years, but what has also been pish-toshed by all my medicos for the same several years. Now they’ve got me worried it’s some kind of tumor. It hurts.
I had Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1996-7 and done whupped it. I do not need any more cancer type issues.
I am scared.
whimper
Good luck, emilyforce!
I wish I could think of a super-awesome tongue pun for you right now but, alas, I am all out.
Here’s hoping that some other Dopers come in with a doozy or two 
Allow me.
Here’s hoping you lick whatever’s ailing you!
Seriously, they ignored that for years? I would be pissed.
Sending healing thoughts your way! Keep us updated.
Thank you all!
olivesmarch4th, I am kind of pissed, though it’s not so much that the various doctors I asked about ignored it as they said…
Dr. #1: Looks like thrush [oral candidiasis]. Here’s some medicine for that.
Dr. #1, later: Thrush medicine didn’t work? OK, here’s a different one.
Dr. #1, later: That didn’t work either? Must not be thrush after all. Hmmn. Come back if it doesn’t clear up on its own.
Dr. #1, much later: Still bugging you? Hmmn. Well, it doesn’t look too serious. Come back if it gets worse.
[it doesn’t get worse, but doesn’t get much better, either; meanwhile, I move out of state]
Dr. #2: I’m looking at what, now? I don’t really see anything. Let me know if it keeps bothering you.
Dr. #2, later: Still bothering you? I guess you should ask a dentist about it.
Dentist: Hmmn. Since you have nocturnal bruxism, I conclude that you are biting your tongue. I will file down this pointy bit on one of your teeth, which should fix it.
Dentist, later: Hmmn. That didn’t fix it. I will file down this other pointy bit, which should fix it. If it doesn’t, it might be… something bad.
Dentist, later: Hmmn. This might be something bad. Here is a referral to an oral surgeon.
Me, home from the dentist: I do not like all these "hmmn"s. What kind of something bad could it be? I will Google to find out.
Google “tongue lesion”:* [evil nasty terrifying pictures]*
Me: :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: Noooo!
My wife is a Web-diagnoser and it always get’s her anxious. Wait and see what the oral surgeon says, and if there is something to worry about then worry. But try not to engage in anticipatory anxiety, it just causes more anxiety 
I once was reading quietly in our computer room when I hear from the bedroom - Honey! I think I have Fibromyalgia… :dubious:
Ok…why honey…?
Well it says here on [insert website] that I have all the symptoms.
:dubious:
Turned out she only had minor muscle pain related to…minor muscle pain. She can get so worked up from web-diagnosing - well take this witha grain of salt.
Good luck! I hope you lick the issue in the bud :smack:
I had a pea-sized irritation fibroma lasered off my tongue some years ago. Hopefully it’s something similarly simple.
Thank you. Sadly, my owie hurts a lot, enough to have me eating nothing but bland soft pH-neutral foods lately, so I don’t think it’s exactly what you had if this is accurate.
Phlosphr, point taken! Google is a lousy doctor. I just wish I had a nice list of benign things it could possibly be.
Not tongue-related, but I had shooting pains in my left breast for three months before I got up the nerve to go see someone about it. I web-diagnosed my way into thinking I had breast cancer, and it turned out I was completely wrong. All I needed to do is quit drinking so much coffee. Some diagnoses take more time than others, but research good drs and then trust them. Good Luck, I’m sending good thoughts your way!
Not to scare you or anything, but someone I know had leukoplakia that eventually resulted in a partial glossectomy. But the ultimate outcome was good. So I can recommend a good oral surgeon if it comes to that. He is in Manhattan, though.
Thank you!
:eek:
FYI, the “not scaring” part didn’t really work out too well for you here.
I could do Manhattan if I needed a partial glossectomy. I sing. I would very much like to keep as much of my tongue as possible. 
Well, mine was on my tongue, not on my gum caused by rubbing dentures (which I don’t have–not that there’s anything wrong with that).
A better example of what mine looked like.
Back from oral surgeon’s. He poked at it a little, so it hurts. He says
[ul]
[li]he doesn’t think it’s cancer, because it has been there so long (oral cancer grows fast) and is painful (oral cancer usually isn’t);[/li][li]he doesn’t think it’s from bruxism, as the fissure is vertical, not aligned with any particular tooth, and has got worse since I’ve been wearing my new nightguard; but[/li][li]he doesn’t really have any idea what it *is, *either.[/li][/ul]
I’m going back for a biopsy Jan. 30th. Much too long from now. :mad:
I know I need to have the biopsy done, but I’m more than a little worried about making an additional wound on this spot that refuses to heal.
He had no palliatives to offer.
His nurse was thoroughly obnoxious. She spent almost twenty minutes telling me I did the right thing coming to an oral surgeon, and that everything was probably going to be OK, and that she had a biopsy done on the inside of her lip once and she didn’t even need nitrous and the stitches popped right out that very night pop pop pop!, and the doctor is a very nice man, a family man if that sort of thing matters to me, not that there aren’t some very good single doctors out there of course, and I must be a very brave young woman to have been through all the health issues I had to put down on my new patient form, and my goodness what a *youthful *young woman I am, why I hardly look 25 years old (I’m 39), and the doctor is going to come in and sit down and talk to me and he’s very straightforward and very nice and I’m sure to find it all very reassuring, not that there’s anything to be anxious about though of course it’s very natural to be anxious even though there’s nothing to be anxious about. (etc. etc. etc.)
Did yours hurt?
My owie is, as advertised, painful, and not “a dome-shaped soft tissue mass” but rather a little vertical crack, a fissure if you will, with little raised lighter-colored half-domes on either side. It looks exactly like a tiny little butt, overall about the diameter of the eraser of a #2 pencil.
Update: mr emilyforce, who is my hero, called around to find me and my tongue somewhere to go TOMORROW. He is going with me, through snowy winter Boston rush-hour traffic (albeit on a nice warm commuter bus with WiFi), to an emergency dental clinic at Boston U.
*
As Og is my witness, I soon shall go
again!*
I had a sore spot on the side of my tongue for months, and finally had a biopsy done last year. The good news is that the biopsy came back normal, and the spot finally healed soon afterward. The bad news is that the stitches caused constant pain. I could barely eat or sleep until I got rid of them.
How long did it take to get rid of them?
My follow-up appointment was a week later. The stitches were supposed to fall out on their own before then, but I couldn’t wait; I cut them after about five days, and most of the pain went away.
Ow! So much for Nurse Blahbiddyblah and her pop pop pop!
Did anyone ever give you a diagnosis (other than “not *not *normal, biopsy-wise”)?
I had a tongue biopsy last year and the results were also normal. My lesion turned out to be essentially a friction wound from a tooth. After the biopsy, there was a gentle sloping divot in the side of my tongue and it didn’t rub after that.
My stitches didn’t even last until I got to the parking lot. By the time I got to the car, one of the stitches came loose so I trotted my self back into the office where the nurse said, “Are you SURE???” No, lady, I always have inch long pieces of string hanging out of my tongue. <sigh> I think there were 7 stitches total and by that evening all but one had come loose. Fortunately, the area healed well so I didn’t have any more problems.
Best wishes to you. Glad you could get into the doc so soon. Keep us posted.