Learn About The Color of Tongue

Just by opening our mouth and stick out our tongue, the doctor is able to get the initial allegations about our disease, that's why many experts of Chinese medicine often ask their patients to stick out the tongue too.

I learned this from the Korean series, "Dae Jang Geum" from the first time, that tongue's color may determine your health condition. And not just from your tongue, your face color, your hair, your skin will also determine your health. Even, they learn to read the pulse which also has many shapes and characteristics.
But now, let's just learn about the color of tongue. The normal color of tongue is pink with tiny bumps called papillae, but sometime the tongue color may change if your body's condition change.

Purple tongue could indicate that our blood circulation is not well. It may caused by chronic stress, or you are experiencing chronic body aches. Purple tongue also indicate that the person is in fever. If there is purple spot in your tongue, you have to check the liver.
Serious causes of purple tongue lesions include Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) a kind of tumor caused by Human herpes virus 8 (HHV8). Smoking also may turn your lips and tongue purple.

But purple tongue is also caused by food like if you're consuming food with purple color like beets, colored drinks, candy, etc.

Advise : See a doctor for the disease and stop smoking.

Chinese traditional treatment : Can be treated with acupuncture, cupping, or gua-sha technique (healing technique that involves touching examination) to accelerate blood circulation, detoxify and relax tense muscles. You have to add some warm ingredients to your diet like garlic, coriander, and ginger.

There is a problem in the digestive system or poor diet. It may caused by consuming much sugar or refined carbohydrates like white flour, starchy vegetables (corn), pasta, rice, etc.

Advise : Change the diet and reducing sugar.

Chinese traditional treatment : Acupuncture, moxibustion (the herbal heating process), and also change the diet.

But if the white color cannot be rubbed off, the causes can be more serious, like HIV and AIDS, Hepatitis C, lupus, and many other serious disease. You have to see the doctor immediately if the white color in your tongue cannot be rubbed off.

Indicate the excessive body heat because of too much alcohol intake, consuming spicy foods, emotional stress in the long run, or smoking.

Yellow tongue usually goes away itself and is harmless, it may caused by fever and mouth breathing too.

Advise : Gently brushing your tongue with water.

Chinese treatment : Acupuncture, and consuming tonic like peppermint, cilantro, green dandelion to make the body's temperature cooling.

Red tongue can be caused by anemia, folic acid and vitamin B-12 deficiency, anemia. Some people will feel stress, anxious, restless, and insomnia

Advise : Consuming foods rich in iron such as spinach and liver.

Chinese treatment : Acupuncture, relaxation, consuming Chinese herbal like oats, lemon, lavender, St John's wort plus some Chinese herbs. Or you may consume food that has cooling effect like cucumber, water melon, and green tea.

Brown tongue is caused by poor diet and poor dental hygiene. It can be caused by foods, drinks, antibiotics etc that we consume. Drinking a lot of coffee, smoking, chewing tobacco can also stain the tongue into brownish shade and harmless.

Advise : Gently brush your tongue with soft toothbrush or a tongue scraper. Eat a lot of vegetables and fruits.

Healthy tongue
A healthy tongue should be fresh pink, moist, with little bumps, has a symmetrical shape. It has no cracks or spots, and should be topped with a thin coating of moisture.

To observe your tongue, you may observe it in natural daylight to get the true picture, and if you see something strange, ask your doctor. Observe it carefully and not in rush, it takes time to get the whole picture of your tongue, the color, shape, is there any spot or not.

Any kind of food, drinks, medications, and vitamins may change the color of your tongue, so before you decide the color of your tongue, ypu have to wait at least an hour after taking any of them.