If you have a burned tongue you must know how painful it is. It will stay on your mind for very long until it gets better. A burnt tongue cna make it difficult to eat and drink and make your meals miserable. You cna burn your tongue if you misjudge the temperature of a food or a drink. Here are a few things to learn about a burning tongue.
What happens when you burn a tongue?
If you have a burned tongue, you must know how painful it is. It will stay on your mind for very long until it gets better. A burnt tongue can make it difficult to eat and drink and make your meals miserable. You can burn your tongue if you misjudge the temperature of food or a drink. Here are a few things to learn about a burning tongue.
What happens when you burn a tongue?
A burned tongue means your taste buds are inflamed and damaged. This can affect the function of your tongue to taste and sense food or drinks. That is the reason everything you eat or drink feels odd and sort of tasteless.
On either side of your tongue lie taste buds to sense sour food items. The front portion of your tongue contains buds for salty and sweet foods, and for bitter things, the taste buds are at the back. All of these tastes will be compromised depending on the burning point.
Three different types of burns
For most patients, a burnt tongue can get better quickly, but some types of burns can stay for long:
- First-degree burn: Impacts the uppermost layer of the tongue, making it inflamed.
- Second-degree burn: Affects the top layer and the one under it. You may have a swollen reddish tongue with blisters.
- Third-degree burn: The deep tissues of the tongue are the victims. The tongue can turn black, and you may have extreme pain and lack of sensation.
How to heal a burnt tongue?
If you’re experiencing a minor burn on the tongue, these simple remedies can help ease the pain and irritation.
- Drink or swish cold water inside the mouth.
- Place a cool cloth on the burnt area.
- Suck on popsicles to minimize the pain
- For a few days, stay away from hot foods and drinks as they can worsen the pain.
- You can also take over-the-counter pain relievers such as ibuprofen to help with the discomfort. We would recommend consulting your dentist or physician before starting any pain medication.
Tongue burns of the second and third-degree aren’t something to be ignored, and you should immediately see a dentist to make sure there’s no infection lingering on your tongue.
Schedule an appointment with the experts at Pasadena Oral Surgery by calling (281) 299 0053.
How long it takes for a burned tongue to heal?
There’s no specific time for how long it takes to recover from a tongue burn, but it should get better within 10-15 days.
A burning tongue hurts
If you’ve mistakenly burned your tongue because you were too hungry to eat that bowl of soup, we know you’re now in pain. But you don’t need to worry too much. It’s easy to heal a burning tongue and get rid of the pain using simple home remedies. It’s important to protect your tongue from burns and other infections to save your taste and speech.