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Covid tongue, may be another coronavirus symptom

There may be another addition to the growing list of strange possible symptoms of the new coronavirus: “Covid tongue.”

A British researcher who is helping to track Covid-19 warning signs is reporting more cases of infected people complaining of tongue discoloration, enlargement and other mouth problems.

“Seeing increasing numbers of Covid tongues and strange mouth ulcers. If you have a strange symptom or even just headache and fatigue stay at home!” Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, tweeted this month.

He believes more than a third of COVID-19 patients, 35 percent, have non-classic symptoms of the disease in the first three days, so it’s important to draw attention to skin rashes, Covid toes and other warning signs that “go ignored,” he wrote.

Spector estimated fewer than 1 in 500 patients have "COVID tongue." The main symptoms he hears about are a "furry coating" of the tongue that can be white or yellow and can't be brushed away, and a scalloped tongue. The condition can be painful.

"It's a good reminder that there are so many different manifestations of this virus rather than just the classical ones," Spector, who is the lead investigator of the ZOE COVID Symptom Study that allows people to report symptoms via an app, told NBC News.

"The whole question of why we have this huge range of symptoms of the virus is still unknown."

Until there's more data, it's too early to add "COVID tongue" to any official symptom lists, but dentists, oral surgeons and other doctors looking inside people's mouths should be aware it might be one of the early signs of infection, he noted.

Other researchers have also reported tongue and mouth symptoms linked with the new coronavirus.

When doctors studied 666 patients with Covid‐19 in Spain, more than a tenth of them — 78 — exhibited “oral cavity findings,” according to a study published in the British Journal of Dermatology.

Of that group, 11 percent had inflammation of the small bumps on the tongue's surface; 6 percent had a swollen and inflamed tongue with indentations on the side; 6 percent had mouth ulcers; 4 percent had "patchy" areas on the tongue; and 4 percent had tissue swelling in the mouth.

(01/31/2021)
by NBC News

More Information: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-tongue-may-be-another-coronavirus-symptom-british-researcher-suggests-n1256078

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