It's common for older people to accidentally bite their tongue while eating, and they often say it means they want to eat meat. It's normal to occasionally bite your tongue when you're distracted while talking and eating, but if you frequently bite your tongue, it could be a sign of certain illnesses.
Frequent tongue biting may indicate lacunar infarction.
Tongue movement is controlled by the nervous system; any problem in this system will affect tongue movement. Occasionally biting your tongue is normal. However, if you frequently bite your tongue, there could be two reasons. One is a disorder in tongue movement during chewing; the other is a sensory impairment in the tongue and mouth, which may be related to excessive stress or physical fatigue, causing the nervous system to be unable to properly control the muscles for chewing activities.
If an elderly person frequently bites their tongue while eating, they should be extra careful. There's a medical condition called lacunar infarction, and one of its early symptoms is frequent tongue biting. This occurs because a localized infarction in the brain compresses cranial nerves, restricting tongue movement and often leading to injury during chewing. Lacunar infarction is more common in elderly people with hypertension, hyperlipidemia, or diabetes. If an elderly person frequently bites their tongue, or experiences dizziness, headaches, unsteady gait, or slurred speech, they should seek medical attention immediately.
The diagnostic criteria for lacunar infarction are basically based on a combination of clinical, pathological, and CT scan methods.
1. The disease is mostly caused by hypertension and arteriosclerosis, and has an acute or subacute onset.
2. Mostly without impaired consciousness.
3. Lumbar puncture revealed no red blood cells in the cerebrospinal fluid.
4. The clinical manifestations are not severe, and they are more commonly manifested as pure sensory stroke, pure motor hemiparesis, ataxia hemiparesis, dysarthria-clumsy hand syndrome, or sensorimotor stroke.
5. If possible, perform a CT scan to confirm the diagnosis.
How to prevent lacunar infarction?
(1) Blood pressure in hypertensive patients should be controlled at a reasonable level. Because excessively high blood pressure can easily cause rupture and bleeding of microaneurysms and atherosclerotic small arteries in the brain; while excessively low blood pressure can lead to insufficient blood supply to the brain and stagnation of microcirculation, which can easily lead to cerebral infarction. Therefore, various factors that cause a sudden drop in blood pressure, slow cerebral blood flow, increased blood viscosity, and increased blood coagulability should be prevented.
(2) Actively treat transient ischemic attacks.
(3) Pay attention to mental health. Many strokes are related to emotional excitement.
(4) Develop good living habits. Moderate physical activity is beneficial to health. Avoid bad habits such as smoking, excessive drinking, overeating, and binge drinking. Maintain a low-fat, low-calorie, and low-salt diet, ensuring sufficient high-quality protein, vitamins, fiber, and trace elements. Overeating is detrimental to health. Avoid moldy food, salted fish, cold food, etc.
(5) Middle-aged and elderly people, especially those who are weak and sick, should be especially careful to avoid sudden changes in temperature, significant changes in air pressure and temperature, as well as the cold and hot summer seasons, in order to avoid getting sick.
(6) Pay attention to the warning signs of cerebrovascular disease, such as sudden dizziness, unsteadiness; sudden numbness, weakness, and drooling on one side of the face or upper and lower limbs; brief loss of consciousness or drowsiness.
