When you’ve been taking antibiotics for an extended period of time, have a weakened immune system or frequent fungal infections, you may end up with a mouth yeast infection. These oral yeast infections are caused by the yeast like fungi Candida. Candida is found actively in everyone’s mouth but normally functioning immune systems break the fungi down and do not allow the infection to grow.
Thrush is most common in young babies-especially while they are still breast feeding, HIV/AIDS patients, elderly people and cancer patients who have been undergoing treatment with chemotherapy or radiation therapy. These people all have weakened or compromised immune systems that seem to make them more susceptible than others.
People who have type I or II diabetes also have been diagnosed frequently with oral thrush infections. The human body, when fully healthy, attacks the Candida that is present in everyone’s mouths. Those who have never suffered from oral thrush cannot fully understand just how painful and annoying it can be.
The symptoms of oral thrush are fairly constant-white, creamy lesions or patches appear, sometimes over night in an individual’s mouth. These patches can be very small or very large. Sometimes they may appear as a small pin sized dot on the tongue or roof of your mouth and by the next morning, your entire mouth is covered. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to thrush.
Thrush sometimes appears as cottage cheese looking spots in the mouth. If you try to scrape these patches off, they may bleed. This can be incredibly alarming to people and it’s not uncommon for these individuals to rush to emergency or urgent care health clinics. The symptoms of thrush may slowly progress and show up or you may find that within the course of a few hours, you’re showing many symptoms.
When you ignore the symptoms of thrush, it can spread quickly. Thrush frequently spreads to the entire mouth, back of throat, esophagus and digestive system of an individual. Thrush infections are very uncomfortable. People who have thrush complain of excruciating pain that cannot be controlled with over the counter pain medications. When you think you or someone under your care has a thrush infection, it’s best to get medical attention quickly to prevent it from spreading.
Thrush is typically easy to distinguish by a medical professional with a simple visual inspection. However, a small sample of one of the lesions may be sampled and sent for laboratory testing to make sure that the infection truly is thrush. If your physician believes that the thrush may have spread into your digestive tract, you may have to undergo an endoscopic procedure. This is a painless procedure that will quickly provide the answers that your physician needs.
If you have a mouth yeast infection, your physician will determine the best course of action to cure it. Unfortunately, it’s not always simple to cure. Your doctor may have to give you several rounds of anti-fungal medications and may need to try more than one approach to eliminating the infection. When you think you may have oral thrush, contact a doctor right away.
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