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Geographic Tongue/being Sick

anniebeth

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anniebeth Apprentice
anniebeth
Posted

Hi. I have what I consider a geographic tongue, although I'd never heard of it before celiac. I've always had either what looks like cracks in my tongue, or prominant taste bud looking things, and/or a white, fuzzy coating. I had never seen my tongue look pink until I went gluten free. The thing is, I also went dairy free and ditched refined sugar. Now that it's the holidays, I've been cheating a lot. Never on gluten, but on sugar and dairy. Now my geographic tongue is back, It's white and fuzzy, and it's sore (something else that used to happen a lot). I don't know if this is because of the dairy, the sugar, or if I have accidentally been glutened. My immune system has been down, too. I've caught a lot of colds- but I am around children all day, so I don't know if this is from a food issue or just germs.

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LaurelMarie Newbie
LaurelMarie
Posted

Hi Anniebeth,

I have the exact same thing. I had a spotty, weird, cracked tongue all my life and one doctor, many years ago (before I knew anything about celiac) told me it had to do with allergies but the docs only talked about airborne allergies at that time, so that's what I thought it was. I pretty much ignored it.

It wasn't until a few months after I was diagnosed with celiac based on other symptoms and gave up gluten that my tongue looked normal without big bald spots... it looks to me like the gluten affects my tongue the same way it affects the intestines; that is, it destroys the villi on the tongue so I get big, slick bald spots. Pretty quick after giving up gluten, I figured out what was going on with the tongue villi and gluten. It took me awhile longer, couple of months, to realize that dairy does it too. I don't know how... and I'd be interested to know what the dairy is doing to my intestines. I think there's still a LOT that the docs don't know about celiac and food intolerances in general. I haven't tried giving up the sugar, and had been thinking that it wasn't hurting me, but maybe I should try and see what my tongue tells me.

If I am exposed to gluten, I get a red crack on my tongue right away, but the next day it's a small bald spot. The bald spot keeps getting bigger and bigger for ~3 wks, finally covering about 1/3 to 1/2 my tongue, then over the 4th week, it slowly goes away. So I figure 1 full month to recover for every exposure to gluten. That happens with the smallest exposure to gluten. As I said, I recently realized dairy does it too, but the dairy reaction isn't so extreme. I can actually have very small amounts of dairy that may make my nose run, but not do anything to the tongue.

So, I gave up dairy too for the most part. I actually find giving up dairy harder than giving up gluten so I'm struggling with it a bit.

Yours,

Marie

curlyfries Contributor
curlyfries
Posted

I don't have a geographic tongue, but sugar makes my tongue feel.........raw. I guess that's the best I can describe it.

Chell Newbie
Chell
Posted

A doctor told me my geographic tongue was from allergies. It hasn't been bothering me as much since going gluten-free. But this thread has me interested in paying more attention to my tongue & dairy. Right now my tongue hurts because I had some nuts today. For some reason nuts really bother my tongue.

I have to say that I'm glad I finally started reading and posting over here because I don't feel like such a freak or so alone. It's nice to see that others are going through the exact same things I am. All these years I've going through so many things and now I'm seeing that it isn't that uncommon.

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