Tongue Atrophy: Slurred Speech?

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ny446

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Do yall know what it looks like in the beginning stages?? Can you have tongue atrophy with no slurred speech, or only slurred speech when really fatigued?? I feel like I have had a little slurred speech especially at the end of a long work day ( i have to talk A LOT with my job).. and I unfortuantely looked at my tongue in the mirror and have since been extra freaked out.. It curves a little bit to one side at the tip, and has a big grove down the center, and then two smaller groves on the outer sides, sometimes when I hold it in the right position.. and then I looked at the underside of my tongue and it is all bumpy and thicker around the edges of the tongue!!! Especially the sides.. is this normal?? I can't say what my tongue looked like before all this started since I never analyzed it.. but i'm SOOO freaked out that this is tongue atrophy.. .. do yalls undersides of your tonuges look "wrinkled" around the edges of it?? I have had marks on my tongue on and off for a few months, i thought it was related to my stomach issues.. but now i'm nervous they were teeth marks or something worse..
 
If you can do all that tongue-checking, there is nothing wrong with it. If it were anything sinister, you would have a lot of trouble manipulating your tongue. Anxiety about BFS can certainly cause some strange speech, swallowing, and oral symptoms. As someone who has "experienced" similar symptoms in the past, I feel confident you are fine.
 
thanks so much for your reply!! So you think that I would have noticable to other people slurred speech issues before I would have tongue atrophy?? I"m so freaked out this week.. I consistently say certain words- like cute and yesterday that are off sounding, and of course in typical OCD fashion i repeat them getting frustrated ha! Does your tongue or anyone elses have a ridge/extra thickiness on the underside of it around the edges? Gosh now I wish I would have taken a picture or looked more detailed at my tongue a year ago haha, now I have no idea whats "normal" for me! thanks again for your response!
 
There is nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo way at all, especially for tongue and hand muscles !!!!!!!!!, that any form of athropy could occur without presenting in massive weakness long before that!!! Athropy it the sign that this muscle has not had any nerve input within the last lime because the nerve is dead. Dead nerve=no movement. No movement= massive weakness or better inability do do ANYTHING with that muscle
 
Looking at your tongue is the equivalant of self-testing and it is a big, fat no-no!! I refuse to study it for dents, atrophy, ridges, bumps, or other abnormalities the same as I resist the urge to test my strength. No good can come of such things. I will tell you that I have almost reached the 3 year mark with this and I am still alive and kicking. Take that for what it is worth.
 
thank yall SOO much for your replies! It truely is helping whats left of my sanity!! (and my hubby appreciates it too- I have asked him to stick his tongue out a few times, he likes that my fear is being eased by reading everything on this site). Its also soo good to know that the speech would have to be pretty bad before noticable tongue atrophy.. i have some slurred speech - especially when i say words like yeSTerday , the ST is hard to come out right.. i just feel like i have a thick tongue and extra saliva at other times.. but from what i've read on here, sounds like a lot of you have been through the same.. and are doing well months/years down the road! phew.. .. SO good to be able to relate to someone who has been here! My dr's now have set me up with the university neuromuscular specialist, and another neuro opinion in the meantime while I wait (its not till January 2nd and that was an expidited appointment).. I'm so sick of seeing drs (i had a lot of med issues that happened before the neuro stuff, plus being pregnant and fertility stuff before that for 4 years)! and i'm also scared that i'm goign to go to a new neuro and they are going to be the ones that find something "really" wrong!!! sounds like i'll be seeing the new guy here within the week.. ugh.. but if he tells me good news then i'll feel even better!
 
Twin2 I meant to say... i only wish I had a shred of your will power!! I have sworn I have thenar atrophy, i look at my hands all day, and I got an ulcer on my tongue from sticking it out so far (it rubbed against my teeth too many times) and I swore off looking at it for a whole week - my hubby said , start small try 24 hours.. I think i made it like 6!!! This whole thing has made me such a head case.. and all my life i've been a pretty rational person, but I am still rational enough to know what i'm doing is crazy i guess, i just am having a hard time resisting overanalyzing it all!
 
Ha ha! The willpower is a relatively new phenomenon. I don't know how I got anything accomplished in the 6+ months I spent staring at my thumbs, testing my reflexes, and testing my speech. I went through excess saliva, sleepstarts, jerks, and tremors. Most were the result of extreme anxiety. Taking Zoloft helped me stop obsessing. I stopped taking it for a year and had a major anxiety relapse recently. I am back on it and completely functional again. I'm not saying meds are necessary, but they saved my sanity twice now. I'm at the point where I'm forgetting to take it most days and am stil fine. Don't really want to take it forever.
 
Hehem I hear you, sick of seeing doctors...I have a doctor odyssey going on since 2004 for fertility treatment and pregnancy problems, then both of my boys had a disease which made us see drs regularly and the I had cervical precancer and now this crap........I canceled my appointment at the neuro ambulance because I am tired of seeing them, they wont help me I guess...I will see a good doctor who is treating all kinds of diseases where the input "gaits" in body don't work properly, like IBS, CFS and Fibromyalgia and some other stuff, and who sees benign twitchers regularly as most of his cfs/fibro patients twitch..he will try to get my nervous system to a normal level with all kinds of treatments including psycho therapy, and I hope this works. The symptoms of what we have are sooooooooooo widespread, that there is no neuro medicine that can treat all of them
 

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