Mandibular Tori - Boney Growths Under the Tongue - Who Knew

When one of the girls was home recently, she asked all the sisters to show her under their tongue. We all wanted to know why she had so much interest.

She said that she and her friend were comparing tongue tricks that people can do that are genetic, and while doing that, her friend freaked out when she told her to just put her tongue into the little gap under it and turn it sideways. 

The friend was like, "What little gap?" Then they looked under my daughters tongue and there is literally a "little gap" between two larger white bone looking things. 

We all started looking at each others mouths and come to find out, she has really large ones. She then looked it up online and when we were all together today, she explained that the white bone looking things are called "Mandibular Tori" and are common in 20 to 40% of the US population and are more common in males. Out of those people, 80% have it on both sides of the mouth! 

She has really large ones, another sister has very small ones you can hardly see, and I have a small one not visible, but I can feel it on the right side of my mouth and almost nothing on the left. The other girls have nothing we can see, and they don't feel anything.  

Weirdest thing about this is, she has never noticed that she is different and I have never noticed and they aren't born with them and they grow. They can grow so large, that they touch in the middle. We looked at them online and some people have no space at all between the sides. 

The causes are unknown but it is speculated that it is genetic, but there is a finding that it can be caused by trauma to the mouth or jaw. Another speculation is that if you clench your jaw or grind your teeth, it can cause them to get bigger or disappear as you don't grind teeth. There is another school of thought, that it is a vitamin deficiency. 

I am not sure what the cause is, but I would think that perhaps trauma could be the cause as she has had several blows to the face / jaw over the years falling on ice when she was little and other situations when she was older. I don't doubt that it could be grinding teeth as I have several that do that. I know that we are vitamin and mineral deficient, so that could also be a contributing factor. 

The girls have been much better lately about taking vitamins and many are getting chiropractic help, so hopefully, if it is from trauma, that would help them disappear. I just worry that maybe it is a result of the nightmare parasites we have been dealing with as I believe some of my girls had them before I did. 

I guess we will never know, but I hope they stop growing. If they continue to grow, they take them out surgically. That is expensive and painful, so lets pray we can figure a way to get them to stop growing. 

Being a nurse, I am surprised I have never heard of this. I love that I can continue learning new things! 

Stay safe and healthy and have a blessed day!