Tongue Thrush
Thrush on tongue and HIV?
Two years ago, I got my tongue pierced and noticed soon thereafter that I had a white coating on my tongue. The white coating only lasted a week or two or so, and it went away. A year later, I took the piercing out. I haven't had a tongue ring in for a year and I noticed that my tongue has a white coating on it again. It doesn't hurt and the white comes off when I scrape it. Now that I am looking on the Internet, I am getting freaked out about HIV. I did have unprotected sex once with an iffy partner and I am going to get tested tomorrow for it. I am just wondering what are the chances of a heterosexual female who had unprotected sex two times with a partner for getting HIV so I can calm my nerves a bit!
Public Comments
- Thrush can also be caused by antibiotic therapy that kills off good bacteria too, thus allowing yeast or thrush to overgrow, so even though you have some risk factors, thrush doesn't always equal HIV. RN
- Your chances depend a lot on the sexual behavior of your partners. Here is a link to the most recent HIV stats provided by the CDC http://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/news/20080129/cdc-releases-new-hiv-statistics
- If the white coating went away and hasn't come back then it was probably not thrush. Thrush also coats the inside of your cheeks(oral mucosa) & your throat & doesn't go aways if untreated. If you had just had your tongue pierced, the white stuff was most likely just plaque, you might not have been cleaning your tongue the way you normally would because of pain or the fact that there was a foreign object in your mouth. People with HIV who progress to AIDS are vulnerable to opportunistic infections like thrush, you would have a lot more symptoms than a coating on your tongue if you were immunodeficient enough to be having opportunistic infections. That said, you should still get tested because you had unprotected sex and it's better to know if you are safe, not because of your tongue.
- you have a coated tongue (plague)...that's not thrush. use a tongue scraper to clean your tongue!!! .....trust ze doctor!
