Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Tongue Diagnosis Made Easy
Tongue Diagnosis Made Easy
The tongue will tend to be thinner, smaller, and a bit rough and dry.
Pitta Constitution
The tongue will be a bit more red in color, medium in size, and slightly
dry.
Kapha Constitution
The tongue will be larger, full, possibly light pink, and a bit wet.
Based on the normal variations between body types, a perfect tongue will be:
produced in the stomach and small intestine to protect the lining from the
irritation.
IBS Tongue
The irritable bowel tongue reflects intestinal irritation from stress on the
tongue. It can be smooth, wet and pale. The smoothness is because the taste
buds are reacting to the stress by contracting or hiding. It is wet because of
the reactive mucus production generated as a result of the stress, and its
paleness is the result of the stomach eventually stopping the production of
stomach acid as a way to protect the intestinal wall from further irritation.
Acid Tongue
The acid tongue reflects symptoms like occasional heartburn. When
stomach acid builds up in the stomach and begins to move upwards, it can
irritate the lining of the stomach, esophagus, mouth, and tongue. The result is
a very red, dry, and often smooth tongue.
Boggy Tongue
A boggy tongue reflects a digestive fire that has been turned off. This
typically results in a pale, wet, coated, and even swollen tongue depending on
what the body type is.
Malabsorption Tongue
This tongue generally has scalloping teeth marks along the sides of the
tongue. It can also be discolored, where it might be reddish in one area, pale
in another, and pink somewhere else.
Stress Tongue
This tongue, which generally afflicts vata and pitta types, will have many small
cracks on the tongue. This is not to be confused with a geographic tongue,
which normally exhibits many cracks. A stress tongue is also typically dry
and often unsteady.
Ama Tongue
Ama, in Ayurveda, is the accumulation of improperly digested food that can
congest the intestinal tract. An ama tongue is when the tongue builds up a
thick coating on the entire tongue. If the accumulation of ama is on the back of
the tongue, it is generally a build-up of toxins in the large intestine. If it is in the
middle of the tongue, it points to a build-up of toxins in the middle of the
tongue.
Pale Tongue
A pale tongue suggests that there is a lack of good stomach acid and
digestive enzymes needed to properly digest food and deliver the minerals,
vitamins and nutrients needed for optimal health. Sometimes this can also be
a sign of anemia.
Dry Tongue
For the stomach to produce the acid needed to digest hard-to-digest foods,
the stomach requires proper hydration. Proper hydration supports a
bicarbonate layer of cells that is 80% water and buffers the acids in the
stomach. Without adequate hydration, the stomach will not produce acid and
the tongue often becomes very dry and slightly pale.
Wet Tongue
A wet tongue can be due to excess kapha (mucus) from a severely irritated
stomach lining, intestinal wall, undigested proteins like casein or gluten, or
from excessive stress.
Swollen Tongue
A swollen tongue may suggest a congested lymphatic system backing up
into the cervical lymph nodes, tonsils, adenoids, and tongue. Look for other
signs of lymph congestion to confirm this.
Tongue scraping is the simple practice of scraping the tongue before brushing
the teeth. Studies have shown that this simple technique:
1. Reduces undesirable bacteria in the mouth that compromise gum, teeth
and oral health. (10)
2. Reduces volatile sulfur compounds (VSC) that are by-products of mouth
bacteria linked to bad breath. (11)
3. Increases the function of taste buds to better taste and digest food. (12)
4. Changes the environment of the mouth to reduce putrefaction and
decrease bacterial load. (13)
Toxins, or ama (as we discussed earlier), collect on the back of the tongue
that can cause obstructions in respiration and foul smell. (14)
Copper may be the best metal to use for tongue scraping because the mouth
is loaded with both good and not-so-good bacteria. Copper not only seems to
be toxic to the bad bacteria, it also provides important enzymes that are
needed for the healthy microbes of the mouth to survive. (15,16)
In one study, the antiseptic benefits of copper were so great that, when copper
was put in hospital rooms as furnishings, the surface bacteria count on all the
surfaces in the hospital room was significantly reduced. (17) Some hospitals
are now incorporating copper furnishings as part of their anti-bacterial
strategies.