My 19 month old has strange spots on his tongue. I first noticed them on Sunday. There are two that are fairly large (relative to his little tongue) and now he has a couple more small ones. They look like red, shallow craters. The taste buds look like they're worn off. It's very strange, and we don't know what to make of it. Has anyone seen this before? Any theories as to what it might be? They do not seem to bother him at all. Although he is recovering from cold, he has not other strange symptoms.
Google Geographic Tongue. It's exactly what you are describing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_tongue
Only go to the first couple of pages on this site, some of the later pages go off onto other stuff and diseases that have nothing to do with Geographic Tongue.
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=im...
You should get a strep test for him; strep can cause red spots in the mouth, throat and on the tonsils. To be absolutely sure, ask for both a rapid test and a 72 hour culture. Sometimes the rapid tests come back with a false negative, but the 72 hour is the golden standard.
M.
My Daughter is now 3 she has had them for awhile. I showed the doctor and he said it was a "geographical tongue" it happends to a small percent of people. There is not much you can do about it and it doesn't hurt.
My whole family gets geographic tounge. Babies grown ups. Google it. The pics online look a little extreme, but see if it matches your son. Basically if I eat anything acidic, extra sugary, rough in texture, have a cold, allergies, really just about anything will set it off w/ me and my son. It usually spreads across our whole tounge untill it all looks like new skin, then its perfectly fine untill something sets it off again. If it makes you feel any better, it doesn't hurt at all! (just heed any OTHER signs of illness too i.e. high fever) When I was little I would also get it when I had strep, which is very dangerous for little ones if not treated!
I get those occasionally - usually when I eat something acidic. For a while, red peppers made that happen. After a month or so, it was oranges. Then it was something else. To me they feel like a light burn, and my tongue feels sensitive and slightly "thick" where the circle is. For me, they last a few minutes to a few hours, and then fade away.
My kids doc calls that Strawberry tongue. When my oldest has it I know it is strep throat.
My oldest had strep once and about 2 wks later my youngest was not sick in the least but she had a rash on her chest and stomach. I insisted they check her for strep and the nurse really thought it was not necessary... Long story short... She had strep. I heard of a child having PANDAS from untreated strep so I never take any chances.
I'm dittoing the strep test.
My son has this same thing, so I took him to the doctor. It's called geographic tongue. If you look at it over time, the spots move around. They don't really know what causes it exactly, but I have found that it flares up if my son is sick, or if his allergies are bad.
Hope this helps!
