Understanding Oral Thrush
Oral thrush can affect people of all ages and all walks of life. It is a relatively benign infection, but it can cause slight discomfort as well as a, sometimes, embarrassing tell tale white ‘gunk’. It is easily treated with medication, which you can buy from an oral thrush medication pharmacy. These topical treatments are relatively cheap. Here, we’re going to explain a little more about oral thrush, because it is an infection that many people misunderstand, and it can cause some people to feel embarrassed. When you understand this infection better, you will realise that it’s very common and certainly not a sexually transmitted disease, as some assume.
What Is Oral Thrush?
Oral thrush is the same as any other thrush infection. It is an overgrowth of a fungus called candida. This fungus lives naturally on the body, and is especially prevalent in warm, damp places, which is why we see it primarily as an oral or vaginal infection.
It is a relatively benign infection that affects only the outer layers of the skin. It is therefore a surface infection, and does not enter the bloodstream or the body’s organs. Oral thrush can be found as a surface infection on the inner cheeks, tongue, throat and palate.
Who Gets Oral Thrush?
Most of us carry the candida fungus, but few of us develop thrush. This is because a healthy immune system – and even a relatively compromised system – can easily maintain manageable levels of candida. However, very young immune systems (that have not had the necessary exposure to pathogens, bacteria and fungus) and severely compromised systems (such as those of people who are receiving treatment for cancer and consequently are using all their white antibodies elsewhere) are susceptible to developing oral thrush.
There are specific groups of people that are more susceptible to thrush infections, these are:
•Babies and young children
•Mothers nursing babies that have oral thrush
•People undergoing chemotherapy
•People undergoing steroid therapy
•People being treated with certain types of antibiotics
•People with compromised immune systems, such as people suffering with HIV or AIDS
What Are The Symptoms Of Oral Thrush?
There are several different symptoms, but the most common include:
•An odd taste in the mouth: this is usually a base-type taste, so the opposite of acidic. There’s also a slight hint of mushroom.
•White patches on the mouth that look like cottage cheese. This is most easily seen on the tongue, and can be scraped off using a tongue scrape. However, it does also appear on the back of the throat and the roof of the mouth.
•Cracked patches in and around the mouth.
Usually, the condition is painless, so it can be quite hard to diagnose in some patients, particularly children, because they show few signs of infection.
Treatment
Thrush treatment usually consists in taking a tablet. This is especially the case with oral thrush, because you can’t really rub creams into the mouth – we’d swallow it! Instead, for oral thrush, we take a single tablet that helps fight the infection. If it doesn’t clear up after a few days to a week, we have to take another tablet. With vaginal thrush, people take both a tablet and rub a cream to ease the irritation. You can buy oral thrush medication pharmacy. You don't need a prescription from the doctor. In fact, it’s cheaper to buy it directly from the pharmacist than via a prescription.
