Lingual Hygiene

As you can see, I post sporadically at best. But this seems a better outlet than Facebook for my most recent obsession - lingual hygiene. And no, I don't mean I'm going to stop using four letter words. What started my obssession with tongue scrapers was a new device used by my dental hygienist - a tongue vacuum. I always thought people who owned specialized devices for cleaning their tongues were a bit OCD. I did a Google search on tongue scrapers, returning some high-quality results in Russian tabloids and alternative medicine message boards. Tongue scraping evidently originated in ancient times. I also turned to PubMed for more scientifically-grounded opinions. Turns out tongue scraping probably does reduce halitosis (bad breath). It can also enhance the sense of taste. Other medical benefits are more arguable. Certainly it reduces bacteria count, but bacteria can be good and bad. I don't really struggle with bad breath (unless my friends are lying to me) or lack of (gustatory) taste, so there's no medical reason I need to start scraping my tongue. But maybe I will. Because thinking about tongue fuzz very much makes you want to eradicate it on aesthetic grounds.

Sources:

Mayo Clinic

Pravda

PubMed