Life Turns out for forty-three years I've been carrying a genetic disorder. In about March I noticed a white mark running down the middle of my tongue and that food tasted weird. A pharmacist thought it might have been just that I'd scalded my tongue, but after seeing the dentist for my regular check-up I was referred up the dental hospital.
The appointment was yesterday. After ninety minutes of interrogation and prodding about in here by some dental students and their lecturer, at one point involving an actual ruler to measure the length of some of the more obvious white patches in my gum, I was told that I wasn't treatable. I have Oral Lichen Planus, an auto-immune disorder caused by the body being at war with itself.
Aesthetically its about as bad as it can get. I strenuously suggest you don't look at this Google image search which is filled with cases far worse than mine. You looked, didn't you. Well, it's you're own fault and Nick Ross isn't going to save you this time. It looks a bit like Oral Thrush, but whereas that can be fixed with some anti-fungal gel, this is just something you have to live with.
Apparently it could clear itself up in a couple of years. Or never go away - some patients have had it for decades. But it shouldn't be effecting taste, so I'm also visiting the hospital for a blood test to check for a zinc deficiency and biopsy out of an abundance of caution that it's not something more serious. There is a cancer risk, 1% in ten years or some such.
But the general message was that this is nothing to worry about which is useful considering my other condition where that's the last thing on my mind. The shift up 100mg seems to be working well and the side effects have subsided again. Yesterday morning I felt nervous before the appointment, but what I like to call "proper" anxiety, the kind which subsides when you know you're going to be ok.
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