There are red spots on the root of the tongue

The color of the tongue coating is a way to check the health of the body. Many patients go to the hospital for a physical examination, and the doctor will ask the patient to stick out his tongue to see the color of the tongue coating. Generally, the normal color is thin and white. If it is not this color, it is unhealthy. However, some patients have red spots at the root of their tongue. So, what is going on with this situation?

Too white tongue coating: It is mostly a cold symptom, thin and slippery tongue coating is mostly due to exogenous wind-cold, thick, white and slippery tongue coating is mostly due to cold-dampness or cold phlegm.

Yellow tongue coating: It is usually seen in the course of febrile diseases, indicating that the struggle between evil and righteousness is very fierce, the disease has entered the interior, and the evil has turned into heat.

Black tongue coating: It is mainly caused by the proliferation and darkening of the filiform papillae/tou on the tongue. There are different shades of brown, gray, charred, and even pitch black. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that if a patient has this kind of tongue coating, the illness must be of a long duration and the disease is complex and serious.

The tongue coating is gray and white or gray, greasy, thin and slippery: It is mostly due to internal cold, with symptoms of weakness and fever/sexual illness, or long-term illness and indigestion.

The whole tongue is pale purple with blue: smooth and without coating, which is a positive symptom of typhoid fever.

Brown tongue coating: intestinal obstruction.

Mirror tongue: the tongue has no coating and is as smooth as a mirror. In mild cases, it indicates malnutrition, or lack of iron or vitamin B2 in the body; in severe cases, it means lack of body fluid and serious illness. If the patient has been ill for a long time and has a mirror-like tongue with crimson color, sepsis should also be prevented. If an elderly person's tongue is as smooth as a mirror and the two veins at the bottom of the tongue are thickened and elongated, it indicates cor pulmonale.

Penetrating tongue: There is a small blank space in the middle of the tongue coating, and the tongue coating has peeled off. Piercing tongue is a manifestation of damage to yin, and often indicates a lack of nutrition in the body. If children have peeling tongue coating, it indicates malnutrition, which is mainly caused by picky eating, resulting in a lack of certain nutrients in the body, causing partial peeling of the tongue coating. Such children have poor resistance and are prone to catching colds or fevers.

Beef tongue: The tongue is dark red, with a smooth coating like beef. Beef tongue is commonly seen in patients with pernicious anemia.

Tofu moss: It is a relatively thick moss with large and loose particles, shaped like tofu dregs. It is a thick layer piled on the tongue. It is easy to scrape off, but it will gradually pile up again after a while. The presence of rotten moss indicates that the person has excess Yang energy, which can lift and dispel the turbid and rotten air in the stomach. It is a sign that the battle between good and evil is taking place and the disease is getting better.

Greasy coating: It is thicker in the center and root of the tongue, slightly thinner at the edges and tip of the tongue. The particles are small and dense, clinging to the tongue and cannot be wiped off or scraped off. The surface of the tongue is covered with a layer of mucus like greasy, and most of the tongue quality is obscured by it and cannot be seen. When viewed through a magnifying glass, the number and branching of the filamentous nipples of the greasy moss have increased, and the keratinized trees of each nipple are entangled with each other and not easy to fall off, and a lot of mucus and food particles are embedded in them. TCM believes that greasy tongue coating indicates that Yang Qi is suppressed by Yin Qi, and that there must be pathological changes in the body such as dampness, turbid phlegm, or food accumulation and stubborn phlegm. Such as acute and chronic gastroenteritis.

Moldy moss: The texture of the moss is similar to that of rotten moss, floating and loose, but the moss on the tongue does not spread flat on the tongue like rotten moss, but is like grayish-white erosion spots or rice grains, accumulated on the tongue of varying thickness. Therefore, moldy moss can be identified by this. It is usually caused by physical weakness, or excessive use of hormones, immunosuppressants and broad-spectrum antibiotics, which lead to low immune function, extremely poor resistance, dysbacteriosis, and fungi taking the opportunity to grow and multiply. This coating usually first occupies a part of the tongue, and then spreads to the entire tongue or the entire mouth. The condition is usually serious. Mold moss is of great value in the diagnosis of fungal diseases.

Prickly tongue: refers to the tongue with many red thorns protruding from the surface of the tongue, like moldy fruits. If the spots appear on the tip or edge of the tongue, it means that the heat is severe, which can be seen in patients with various febrile infectious diseases or large-area burns. If the spots appear in the middle of the tongue, it is mostly because the heat toxicity is more severe or the heat has entered the blood, which can easily lead to shock and coma. People who suffer from insomnia, constipation, or work stressfully at night, as well as those with vitamin deficiency, malnutrition, and cerebral cortex dysfunction, may also have red spots on the tongue, which Chinese medicine calls "yin deficiency and fire excess." There is still pain when pricking the tongue surface, but the pain will disappear quickly after resting, adjusting the nutritional structure and ensuring smooth bowel movements. Modern research believes that punctures are caused by the hyperplasia or hypertrophy of the nipples on the tongue.

Fissured tongue: The cracks on the tongue surface include deep cracks, shallow cracks, and cracks and wrinkles in different directions. Shallow cracks are like wrinkles, while deep cracks are like being cut and shredded by a knife, with irregular grooves. About 0.5% of normal people are born with congenital cleft tongue. Modern medicine believes that the shallow cracks on the tongue are mainly caused by atrophy of the tongue mucosa, which causes the original longitudinal and transverse lines of the tongue muscles to show through the surface; the deep cracks on the tongue are more serious tongue atrophy/xing lesions, which cause the tongue muscle epithelium to lose its normal structure, part of the tongue papillae become flat and fused, while part atrophy and break to form cracks. The patterns of cracks on the tongue are really strange, including longitudinal, transverse, tree fork, well, hexagram, or brain-like grooves, and some are like pebbles. Pathological fissure tongue often coexists with atrophic tongue, and can be seen in some chronic wasting diseases, as well as cases of chronic glossitis caused by malnutrition and vitamin B deficiency, and is often accompanied by tongue pain, dry mouth and other phenomena. Some long-term geographic tongue may later turn into fissured tongue. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that cracked tongue with dry tongue surface is mostly due to insufficient body fluid; if there is also excessive heat, the tongue may also be red.

Smooth tongue: The tongue surface is smooth without saliva or tongue coating, as flat as a mirror, and looks shiny, also called "mirror tongue". Regardless of the disease, whenever this tongue pattern is seen, it indicates that there are signs of yin/ye disappearance in the body and severe loss of body fluid. A shiny and red tongue indicates excessive heat damaging the yin, while a shiny and pale tongue indicates damage to both the qi and yin. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that a tongue as smooth as a mirror is a critical tongue appearance. According to clinical observations combining traditional Chinese and Western medicine, a smooth tongue is one with no coating or spots on it, and the filiform papillae and fungiform papillae are all atrophied, which is a manifestation of late-stage glossitis. Smooth tongue can be seen in diseases such as severe vitamin C deficiency, pernicious anemia, prolonged high fever, cirrhosis and cor pulmonale in the failure stage, chronic renal failure uremia, toxic shock, cerebral coma, etc. Studies have confirmed that various factors that cause necrosis of tongue mucosal epithelial cells may lead to a mirror-like tongue.

Congestion tongue: There are scattered purple-black bruises or spots on the tip or edge of the tongue. This phenomenon indicates that there is "blood stasis" in the body. People with blood stasis have slower blood flow in their bodies, and in some parts of the body, blood flow may even stagnate completely. When people eat, they may accidentally bite the edge and tip of their tongue; when people are sick, the fragility of their blood vessels increases, and sometimes they may unknowingly break the blood vessels on their tongue. The tongue is more sensitive and tends to bleed more easily than other parts of the body, making it easy for petechiae or ecchymosis to appear on the tongue. Petechiae and ecchymoses on the tongue are also common in young women. Most of them have irregular menstruation, dark menstrual blood, often blood clots, dysmenorrhea and other symptoms. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that this is a manifestation of blood stasis. The use of drugs that regulate menstruation and promote blood circulation can unblock the microcirculation of the tongue and restore blood flow to normal. Not only can menstrual disorders and dysmenorrhea be cured, but the petechiae and ecchymosis on the tongue will also disappear. Many cancer patients have petechiae and ecchymosis on their tongue, sometimes accompanied by cyanosis. According to statistics, about 50% of patients with malignant tumors have purple tongues, and about 20% have petechiae and ecchymosis. If petechiae and ecchymosis suddenly appear on the tongue, a detailed examination should be carried out and attention should be paid!