Bite your tongue–but not literally

June 17, 2013

Ahh, the things we do to ourselves and our health. I had a dental check-up. Cleaning. Routine. Or so I thought. But then the dentist came in and said that there was a growth under my tongue that he was worried about. He showed me in the mirror. I really couldn’t see it very well. The dentist made an appointment for me to see an ear, nose, and throat surgeon right away. The surgeon said that it indeed needed to come out. So surgery was scheduled. And it came out. And it was studied. And it was pronounced a ‘ hemangioma’–explained to me as a ‘nest of entangled blood vessels bound up in tissue.’

‘Have seen a similar thing in patients who were in auto accidents where they bit their tongue really hard. Or other events where the tongue got bitten. Don’t know what caused yours.’

Yikes. I do. I had developed the habit of literally biting my tongue. I placed the tip at the back of one corner or my mouth and kept quiet during times when I knew I should keep quiet. But I didn’t want to keep quiet. Broke that habit in one moment. How many other bad habits affecting our health could we stop in an instant if we only knew what they were doing to us?