by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

Periodically, people come to my office because they’ve looked in the back of their mouth, for whatever reason, and seen large bumps. Freaked out and thinking they have some awful disease, they come to await the dire diagnosis. So what do I tell them?

Most of the time everything is fine; the bumps are normal. The patient is usually relieved or doesn’t really believe me. So why don’t you take a look at yourself now to see what normal looks like? Get a light and a mirror and look at the back of your tongue.

Behind the small, well-known taste buds, you’ll see a line of larger bumps. These are a different type of taste bud (detecting bitterness), but a taste bud all the same. They should all be about the same size.

Behind that line you’ll see still more big bumps. These are lingular tonsils, made out of lymph tissue similar to what makes up the larger tonsils on each side of the back of your throat. Presumably, they are all there as some sort of infection protection.

All bets are off if you have single or new lesion, sores, or one lesion larger than the rest. Then please get an exam ASAP. There certainly are dangerous lesions, such as oral cancer, that should be detected for treatment, and the sooner the better.

When you’re at a doctor’s visit for something else, have him or her take a look. If all is OK, then take quick look for yourself. Now you can know what normal looks like. Look again in a month. I’ll bet it hasn’t changed. If it has, then you can freak.

Tongue illustration courtesy, training.seer.cancer.gov.

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This entry's content reflects the opinions and reporting of the author and not necessarily that of JHMFD. This entry was posted on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 1:00 am and is filed under General Health, Insider Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.