I think I have mouth cancer...

I'm nervous!

My whole mouth has sort of had this burning sensation...and when I went to brush my teeth I noticed a little bump on the tip of my tongue. I feel like my tongue looks a little discolored too, but I'm not sure if that's from the mass amounts of coffee I drank today. Oooh gosh, I think there's bigger bumps on the back of my tongue, it's hard to tell...

I looked up symptoms and pictures and everything, but they only show the extreme pictures...so I don't really have anything to base it on.

I just don't want to have to get my tongue removed and replaced with muscle from some other part of my body. It just won't be the same.

Unless you chew tobacco or you've been having these symptoms for longer than a few weeks, I doubt you need to get nervous or start shopping your body for new tongues.

Have you eaten anything different from the norm?  The few times I've indulged in pineapple, my mouth has been all torn up.  (Sad.  I love pineapple.)

You could also have picked up a regular ole virus, and it's just giving you this one symptom.

No, I don't chew tobacco, but I do drink alcohol. I read that alcohol could cause mouth cancer too...eep. I probably have had it for weeks and just haven't noticed.

I have changed my diet a lot this past month though, so maybe that's it? My allergies have been acting up too, so maybe that has something to do with it...I have no idea.

I'm just trying to figure out how long I have if it is mouth cancer. Should I go to the emergency room tonight, tomorrow, or could I afford to wait a week or two?

Maybe I should just call...yea, I think I'll call.

Thanks for the response!

Could be thrush. I know someone that had it and their tongue was all messed up.

Yea, I saw a bunch of things about that too. The pictures of that looked fungusy, and my tongue doesn't really look like that. It could be in the beginning stages though.

I think I'm going to research more about that.

I'm no doctor, but I heard that the basic symptoms of any kind of cancer are weight loss, swolen glands, and fever. Do you have any of those?

I doubt its cancer, but you might want to get it checked out just to be safe.

Does the bump on your tongue hurt at all?  Did you bite it in the night and not realise?  I sometimes bite my tongue by accident and a lump develops.

Go to a doctor. It probably isn't cancer, and you are scaring yourself by reading diagnoses of dire diseases on the internet.  We can all speculate, but your doctor can tell you what's up.

False alarm...

It was completely gone this morning :)

darn that WebMd!

I thought I was dying on numerous occasions thanks to looking up symptoms!

Original Post by kankan213:

darn that WebMd!

I thought I was dying on numerous occasions thanks to looking up symptoms!

haha. me too. :)

Yes, call the doctor.  They will probably help alleviate your fears.  I have heard that throat cancer is on the rise in females due to performin oral sex on males who are carriers of HPV and do not know it.  Males often times do not have symptoms (obviously can't develop cervical cancer!), but are able to pass the virus on to their female partners.

Edit:  Oh!  It is gone!!!  So glad to read that.  :O)

Everyone has bumps on their tongue... they look a little weird, especially at the back of your mouth, but they're perfectly normal. The little bump and mark was probably from a minor scrape - tongues are very sensitive and they often get minor injuries during the regular course of eating - a scrape on the tip of your tongue is rather painful and can be disturbing, but it's almost always gone the next day, because fortunately the inside of your mouth heals very quickly too!

If you tend towards hypochondria (like thinking you have developed rare and unusual forms of cancer overnight) then stay away from internet medical sites because they'll only scare you silly!

Yea, I'm not supposed to look up symptoms online. Most of the time I'm good about it, but sometimes I get really freaked and just have to! Of course this makes the situation 100 times worse, and I freak out even more.

I've been good sinse the mouth cancer scare though...