Tongue Talk

You don’t often realize how essential your tongue is in your everyday life. This remarkable muscle plays a crucial role in various functions that are vital to your daily activities. From tasting delicious foods to articulating words, the tongue is an unsung hero in our body. 

Taste and Digestion 
The tongue helps you taste, eat, digest, and speak. While you chew, the tongue assists with moving the food and swallowing. The small bumps, or papillae, on the tongue allow you to taste different flavors, making eating an enjoyable experience. These papillae are equipped with taste buds that detect sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami (savory) flavors. 

Speech and Communication
The tongue is an agile and flexible muscle, giving it the ability to produce many words. It works in harmony with other parts of the mouth, such as the lips and teeth, to form sounds and words. This flexibility allows us to communicate effectively, express our thoughts, and connect with others. 

Sensitivity and Hygiene
The tip of the tongue is sensitive, allowing it to assist in cleaning the mouth and alerting us to different concerns. The tongue plays a role in oral hygiene by helping to remove food particles and bacteria from the mouth. 

Have you noticed once your tongue finds a sore spot in your mouth it can’t leave it alone? It is a curious creature. Let it explore your teeth after brushing to show you where you have missed.  

Tips on how to use your tongue to assist with oral hygiene: 

• After brushing your teeth, let your tongue examine each tooth. 
• Start with the very back tooth by your cheek and work your way around the entire mouth. 
• If you feel like your tooth isn’t smooth and there is still a fuzzy layer, go back and brush that area. 
• Then complete the tongue test again. 
• Let your tongue show you where you need to spend more time brushing your teeth.  

Cleaning your Tongue
The tongue is useful, but we must also remember to clean it. The tongue has many small bumps for bacteria to hide. When the tongue is not cleaned routinely, the trapped bacteria can create bad breath or even change how your food taste. Disrupting this layer of bacteria should be a part of your daily oral hygiene routine. 

TePe® Tongue Cleaner
Designed to correspond with the natural shape of the tongue, which reduces the gag reflex and makes it easier to reach far back in the mouth. The three, slightly raised cleaning blades give a triple-effect, allowing bacteria to be removed with one stroke. 

To clean your tongue, slightly stick your tongue out and apply gentle pressure sweeping over the surface of the tongue from the most posterior portion to the tip of the tongue. If you have not been routinely cleaning your tongue, it may take a few passes of the tongue cleaner to remove the layers of bacteria. Be sure not to press too hard and if your tongue becomes tender, be sure to let it recover and then start your tongue cleaning again. 

This video will guide you in understanding the features of the product and how to use the TePe® Tongue Cleaner.