# I have what feels like a small skin tag inside my mouth **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 6, 2011, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-what-feels-like-a-small-skin-tag-inside-my-mouth/580973 "2011-05-06T15:53:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-what-feels-like-a-small-skin-tag-inside-my-mouth/580973/1 "2011-05-06T15:53:02Z")
I know, I know, go see a doctor and I will. But I’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning to schedule an appointment so I thought I might ask here first. Yesterday I felt like I had something caught between my tonsil and the underside of my tongue, and thought at first it might be a tonsil stone. But after feeling back there carefully and trying not to gag, I felt a soft little protrusion inside my jaw adjacent to my tongue, that wiggled back and forth like a tiny skin tag. So, if rule 34 of the Internet is porn exists for everything, rule 35 must be that any medical symptom you Google yields “OMG you gots teh cancer!!!” But what do you guys think? Worth losing sleep over before I book my appointment in the morning? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![awldune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@awldune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/awldune)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-what-feels-like-a-small-skin-tag-inside-my-mouth/580973/2 "2011-05-06T16:27:51Z")
IANAD, but it sounds like a polyp. Not uncommon and usually benign. ETA: Polyps in the colon and uterus are more serious but unrelated to the sort that occur in the mouth/nasal passages. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-what-feels-like-a-small-skin-tag-inside-my-mouth/580973/3 "2011-05-06T16:37:54Z")
Let me get my Alligator forceps and a scalpel and we’ll see. [sub]unlikely to be anything to worry about, lots of benign lumps and bumps in the mouth, few cancerous ones. Unless you use tobacco, of course.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-what-feels-like-a-small-skin-tag-inside-my-mouth/580973/4 "2011-05-06T16:50:02Z")
Thanks! I will still get it checked out of course. I guess one reason it’s been weighing on my mind is I have a coworker who did have oral cancer, and he’s had a hell of a time – after surgery and radiation therapy, he’s been in complete remission for the past 2 years, but in those two years his esophagus has been collapsed and he’s forgotten how to swallow. I’ll never forget sitting next to him at a company dinner and watching him take some of the celabratory whiskey and inject it through a tube into his stomach. ETA: I believe he was either a smoker or tobacco chewer ---
**Author:** ![komolono](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/komolono/32/532_2.png) [@komolono](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/komolono)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-what-feels-like-a-small-skin-tag-inside-my-mouth/580973/5 "2011-05-06T17:26:07Z")
Oral sex is one possible cause [http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763\_162-20035363-10391704.html](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20035363-10391704.html) ---
**Author:** ![komolono](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/komolono/32/532_2.png) [@komolono](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/komolono)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-what-feels-like-a-small-skin-tag-inside-my-mouth/580973/6 "2011-05-06T17:32:00Z")
ETA: And of course after it ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-what-feels-like-a-small-skin-tag-inside-my-mouth/580973/7 "2011-05-06T17:49:04Z")
Sometimes I get these tiny little… things in my mouth? Like skin tags, or maybe zits? (Not tonsil stones.) Anyway, if I scrape them with a fingernail they pop, there’s a little taste of blood, and that’s it. Always wondered what that was.