Throat & Tongue swollen on one side

:-) working on throat cancer and chemo. Have had 5 surgeries. Trying to keep mouth rinsed out. Have throat swelling issue. WHen I
rinse out the throat, I have some swelling and it it moves from side to side.-top . any ideas as to the casue of this swelling.
John Bubank :-(

Very happy to read that I am not alone. I am experiencing left cheek, half tongue and one sided lip swelling almost daily. I have been taking presciption allergy pills with predinsone if needed for about two months. I need answers. I have seen my GP and many emergency room doctors. At first it was only happening during the night, I would wke in the am with some facial swelling and as advised by my GP I would take a reactine and be fine. THEN one day reactine didnt work and i saw an emergency room doctor and he gave me steriods and hydroxidine..worked. But it seems everytime the medicine wears off I swell up again...or I am swelling up by coiniendence?? I thought garlic..or eggs...or my cat.
I also suffer from cold hives and acid reflux. I take Paxil daily for years to treat anxiety.
Please lets compare notes

This just happened to me last night. I started to feel a tingle sensation on the left side of my tounge and today it swelled up, mostly on the left side. I'm a male and 46 yrs old. I have never had this before and I just took a benedrly, so I hope it will go away in 3 to 4 hours. I ony had a bowl of cereal this morning and pizza for dinner. I did take two advil for a headache last night and again this morning. I read where that can make your tounge swell as a side affect. I haven't had advil in a couple of years, I take excedrin for headaches.

It was so good to find this site. My husband has had his tongue swell hugely, over Christmas 2010 and we have ended up in emergency room twice. it is happening every three weeks, sometimes his lip and part of his face also. He switched off of Diaspan, a blood pressure med, I think. He is on a lot of meds for diabetes so we are going to have to start switching meds to see if we can find what causes it. An allergist tested him, no known food allergies. It is scarey to think the throat might close so, yes, he was also given an epi pen. reading these posts it does seem difficult to find the cause. one doctor told us we might never find the cause. how scarey. I guess all we can do is pray to be safe. Good luck to you all. At least reading these posts I feel better, like we are not alone and so far no one seems to have died of whatever is causing this horrible tongue swelling.

Have had partial lip, tongue and throat swelling as well.  It is only a small portion of a lip or 1/2 of my tongue or throat.  I went to an allergist/immunologist who said it is not allergies.  He says it would not be a partial swelling as an allergic response.  He was checking my blood proteins, which he says may be the problem....they inhibit swelling.  I don't know.  I have also been to the ER with 1/2 of my throat swollen.  I also received Benadryl and steroids, but the swelling didn't subside for about 6 hours (the usual time it takes without treatment).  I am at a loss also.  I find it hard to believe it is stress as I feel like I have about as little stress as I can have when this all started.  I retired in June and am loving life.  I am taking care of me....exercising..doing Yoga and eating well.  I sleep 9 hrs. a night.  Life is good.....except for these recent swelling episodes......NOW, I AM STRESSED!!!

I have had this same problem for two years now and it is getting worse.  I'm allergic to steriods so that is out.  I will try benyadril.  Also, someone told me to get rid of my pillows and replace with new hypo-allergetic ones.  I'm going right now to do just that.  Good luck to everyone suffering from this crazy infliction, I know I'm sick of it! 

Well at least I'm not alone. Here is my story. At the end of June I kept telling my family that my tongue felt funny. I said it taste like metal. I also kept saying it felt like I burnt my tongue. I kept thinking about what I ate over the week that may have burnt it. Nothing. Fast Forward to 7.2.11. I just finish dinner and the inside of my left cheek feels like It's swollen and I bit it. I go look in the mirror and there is a black dot in my cheek. ... run show husband says it looks like I have a hole in my cheek..... I hour later my throat is closing up on me. .... look at my mouth and it's BLOOD RED my throat, cheek and tongue and it hurts bad.  I say I have to go to hospital because I may be bleeding internally because I take blood thinners. I'm scared because it's hard to swallow....... go to ER the nurse wants everyone to come look because she says it looks like I'm hemorrhaging in my mouth but I'm not acutally bleeding it's just that red.  They hook me to an IV and give me an antibiotic. then run blood test. Test showed my protime level for my blood thining is 5 it should be about 2. They call my doctor he says. Stay off the blood thinners until I see them Tuesday. The ER also gives me Zithromax to take. They also wanted to know if I wanted percocet for the pain. I took 1/2 pill. (PS I also had started taking a new vitamin and thought that was the problem... it wasn't)

Tuesday. My throat and cheek are still beet red....my primary Doctor says it look like some kind of virus and it definitley has nothing to do with my blood thinners. He calls an ENT Dr and gets me an appt right away.

ENT Dr is a nut! He goes up my nose to look at my throat says everthing is fine ...... he sends me to get blood work done, goes on to ask me qestions about my sleeping habits and says thinks I have Sleep apnea and want me to get tested. GET THE HECK OUTTTA HERE. Says the redness should go away. (I repeat he's a nut)

That Saturday my cheek starts to swell .....not as bad but I  can see the redness and feel the swelling.

The following Monday I wake up at 3am it's about 80 degrees and My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth and I can barely swallow. I couldn't lay down because I couldn't swallow  and I was choking  I had to prop myself up on pillows and keep sipping water to help me swallow.  I thought my mouth  was dry because I had the fan on and it dried me out. Got up looked in mirror. Tongue and cheeck red and a mess. I can barely talk and I had to call out from work.

Back to ENT that morning. MONDAY He calls in his partner to look they think it's some sort of virus and the partner tells him to give me and antibiotic. They gave me Acyclovir. I'm suppose to take it 10 days. By day 7 I wake up and my eye is BLOODSHOT. I'm thinking it's the antibiotic I call him and tell him what's going on. HE TELLS ME I PROBABLY SHOULD SEE AND EYE DOCTOR I'TS NOT THE MEDS......THEN 5 MINUTES LATER HIS NURSE CALLS ME BACK AND SAYS HE SAID YOU CAN STOP THE ANTIOBIOTIC YOU'VE HAD ENOUGH. (NUT CASE)

So I stopped meds on Tuesday. .... Saturday I ate a funny bone cupcake hadn't had one since I was a kid and I ate it. Within an hour I could feel my mouth getting tingly and swelling. The whole left side of my tongue was red and nasty looking and the inside of my cheek was red. IT lasted the rest of the day. Today is Sunday and my mouth is okay. I have an appt with the same ENT tomorrow the only reason I'm going is to tell him that it came back. I'm going to find another doctor because I really don't like him. I wasn't going to go at all because he's just going to give me the results of my blood test but I already got  the results because my blood work also went to  my primary  and he already called me and said everything was normal.

So I'm off to my appt tomorrow I was kind of hoping it was still red so he could see this is still going on.

One thing I do know is you have to be Pro Active about your health sometimes you just have to tell the doctor look this is not right and I want you to try ABC.

Forgive the way I wrote this. I wanted to make sure I got everything in.
Their is another board similar to this with people that have the same problem and one person said to get your immune system checked. I'm going to bring that up to my doctors

I may even print some of these post because all of us have the same sort of illness and no one has a diagnosis  or cure.

Good luck everyone.

This is a reply to my own post. After searching the web the past few days I found something that best resembles what I've been experiencing.It's called.

BURNING MOUTH SYNDROME.

I have most of the symptoms that are listed.

same thing here. happening now. but the back of my tongue on side closes to my rear tooth has something like canker sore. firstime it happen the ENT thot cancer n done biopsy to find no cancer n 1st x this was rightside now its 2n x is leftside happening. i allergic to Codiene n it get ANAFILACTIC WHERE MY THROAT swells up n closes. perhaps i have nother reaction. this i know may have started wen i stated using DRISTAN Nasal Medicine. as was like b4.

Ive had the same thing happen to me, and it seems to be on going.

The itcyness is all the time. I'm on telfast and ranitidine,prentizone. Just don't know when it's going to happen again... is the scarey part. It happens so fast

I TO HAVE HAD THE SAME THING HAPPEN TO ME. FIRST TIME AS SOON AS I WOKE UP AND THE BACK OF MY THROAT WAS ITCHY AND WHEN I LOOKED IN THE MIRROR IT WAS SWOLLEN.
THEN 2 WEEKS LATER THE SAME THING, THIS TIME IT WAS MY TOUNGE, ON ONE SIDE.... IT'S BEEN 3 MONTHS NOW AND I HAVE TO TAKE TELFAST AND RANITIDINE.....

The first time in my life this happen to me, was last night today 16th
Half the tongue, swollen, to the point I could not talk.....correctly.
As the day went on, it was better, I have had some red spots never the same place, red, but not any kind of sores. I have a history of Fibro
And some serious stress for my husbands, changes more and more.
I have gone through a lot but this has been the worse stress of my life.
I did look up today, and they talked about stress, then I found you too.
I have had some trouble with my perotids, behind my ear, it is a gland.
It showed in MRI, partly, and it seemed like It was better, and at this time this is sore too. I go in tomorrow early! To the Dr I had seen for perotids. I have always been a strong person and of faith, but this stress that you can't do anything about, we take it in and think, well this will pass or fix what is wrong, and go on, but I find I take things in and my body is rejecting in a big way. Stay in contact, so I can share what the Dr says. Candice

HAVE YOU STILL GOT THIS PROBLEM, AS I'VE THE SAME, AND IT HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR 4 MONTHS NOW,

Susan,

You are not alone. I have the same problem and started about 2 years ago. If you are anything like me, you don’t have an allergy. The next time it happens have blood work C1 Inhibitor checked, if normal then no allergy. You may contact me at

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I am from UK but live in Spain & have gone for four year's of misery with swellings appearing every 4 or 5 days.The most worrying was the tongue filling my mouth & the neck looking like i have like a large double chin. The doctor's tried all sorts but at last i was prescribed Levocetirizina & have not had any swellings for a month. The swellings would also appear on hands & sometimes on feet but usualy on one side. Realy hope this can help some one.