Black Hairy Tongue Essay

As some may or may not know, a person 's tongue can show a lot about one 's health status. A tongue can show whether or not you are lacking certain vitamins and it can also show how well one is maintaining their oral hygiene, or whether or not there could be excess bacterial growth. One of the unfortunate conditions a tongue can show us is, black hairy tongue. When tobacco chewing starts to become a fad in high school it is common for influential individuals like teachers and parents to inform kids of black hairy tongue. While tobacco usage can result to a black hair tongue, it is not the only reason for someone to have black hairy tongue. Specifically, black hairy tongue is caused by an overgrowth of bacteria in the mouth. According to Oral-B, certain types of bacteria accumulate on the papillae, or small projections that cover the tongue, and create blood cell pigments, which can make the tongue look black. And if the normal shedding of the outer layer of the cells on the tongue is inhibited, the papillae and the tongue can appears ‘hairy’ (Oral-B). This means that the tongue is not actually hairy; however it appears to be hairy because of

Because of this, one of the main reasons we are taught that black hairy tongue comes from tobacco is because in America it’s the most common way of getting black hairy tongue. Some of the ways a person would get black hairy tongue can very. According to Balaji Govindan at EBSCOhost, “Smoking, poor oral hygiene, xerostomia, using peroxide containing mouth washes, substance abuse and drugs like steroids, methyldopa, olanzapine, are the predisposing factors,” (Govindan Balaji, 2017). In places like India, obtaining assistance with oral hygiene is not as important as it is in the states, so black hairy tongue is more common