Watch Your Mouth

Anyone who has ever been to the dentist remembers the part where the dentist grabs your tongue with a piece of gauze and sees how far he can stretch it out of your mouth, toward each eye and each shoulder. You may not believe it, but he’s not trying to torture you. He’s looking under your tongue and in the corners of your mouth for pre-cancerous lesions.

April is Oral and Oropharyngeal Cancer Month. In English, it’s the month where we educate about cancers of the mouth, tongue, gums, lips and the back of the throat. They are areas of the body we don’t usually think about when it comes to cancer, as they’re less prevalent than breast, lung, prostate or colon cancer. But even so, the American Cancer Society estimates that over 58,000 individuals will contract this form of cancer in 2024. And because our region of the country has a higher-than-average rate of tobacco consumption, we see more of these cancers in East Central Alabama than we should. In fact, the Alabama Department of Public Health indicates that Alabama is 12th in the nation in the incidence of oral cancers.