What does this mean?
There may be one main groove running down the middle of the top of the tongue, with smaller grooves branching off it to the sides. These are folds in the surface; they are not cuts or tears, they do not bleed on their own, and their depth is measured in millimetres. The muscle underneath the grooved surface stays intact, so for most people speech and swallowing are not affected.
What separates this structure from temporary changes in the tongue is that its pattern stays put. The position and spread of the grooves are the same month after month; they do not wander as they do in geographic tongue, and they do not brush away as a coating does. In most people they start to show in childhood and deepen a little with age. A groove that appears over a short time, deepens quickly or gathers at a single spot is a different finding.
Trouble usually comes not from the groove itself but from what stays inside it. Food debris, dead cells and micro-organisms collect in the narrow channels; this build-up can lead to bad breath, redness along the edges of the groove and burning. A dry mouth makes the picture more obvious, because reduced saliva cannot rinse the channels out. If oral thrush joins in, the burning may sharpen and a whitish film may be seen inside the groove.
The grooved look on the tongue is usually a person's own surface pattern; other factors come into play when it starts to cause trouble. The headings below list the conditions found most often behind this appearance.
Likely causes
What helps at home?
- Clean your tongue with a soft brush, moving across the grooves rather than along them; that is the only way the debris inside a channel comes out.
- Do not press down hard with a stiff scraper; the thin tissue at the base of a groove is easily irritated and can bleed.
- If your mouth is constantly dry, spread your water intake through the day; a dry mouth speeds up the build-up inside the grooves.
- If you notice a white film in a groove, do not decide on your own to apply an antifungal medicine or home remedies such as bicarbonate of soda.
- If the edges of the grooves have turned red and hurt when they are touched.
- If the white film wipes away and leaves a red surface underneath that bleeds easily.
- If one of the grooves has deepened quickly over recent weeks, or its edge has hardened.
- If dry eyes and joint trouble go along with the dry mouth.
- If there is an ulcer that has lasted more than two weeks and will not heal.
Frequently asked questions
- Do the cracks on the tongue close up over time?
- When the grooved surface is a person's own structure it is permanent; it is not expected to close up, and it is usual for it to become a little more marked over the years. Regular cleaning can ease trouble such as burning and odour, but the pattern itself does not disappear.
- Are the cracks caused by a vitamin deficiency?
- For most people a grooved tongue has nothing to do with diet. If, however, the tongue has become smooth and red over the same period and cracks have formed at the corners of your mouth, a deficiency of iron, vitamin B12 or folate is a possibility worth looking into; a blood test settles that.
- Could these cracks be the reason for my bad breath?
- They could be. Debris and micro-organisms collecting in the narrow channels release odour-producing compounds. Even so, bad breath has other sources as well, such as gum disease, decay, a poorly fitting denture and post-nasal drip; it should not be blamed on the tongue alone before the source has been narrowed down.
This content is for general information and does not replace an in-person examination. Symptoms overlap between conditions, and a diagnosis can only be made clinically.