Ginger’s Painful Tongue

By Kay Hisano | Dated November 27, 2023

Ginger, a young and handsome 7-month-old British Shorthair came to see Dr. Catherine as his owners noted that he was not eating, salivating a lot and very lethargic. Earlier that week Dr. Catherine had started him on antibiotics for his gut to help him recover from his upset stomach.

Trying to understand why Ginger was salivating so much, Dr. Catherine had a quick look in his mouth and could instantly tell that his tongue wasn’t looking just quite right. The tip of his tongue was looking bright red, and the rest of the body of the tongue was looking white as paper.

Ginger’s ulcerated tongue

Ginger’s owner had mentioned that since he had been having diarrhea for a while they had cleaned all their floors at home with disinfectant and she had seen him licking his paws a lot recently. After running some blood tests and carrying out a thorough physical examination, Dr. Catherine came to the conclusion that the disinfectant that he had licked off from his paws in an attempt to groom himself had caused a chemical burn and an infection.

After starting on some pain relief and antibiotics his temperature had come down and after a couple of days in clinic, he had started eating on his own. Although it must have been an uncomfortable recovery for him, we were all very happy to see him go home with a nice pink tongue, and back to his smoochy self. It’s needless to say all our staff fell in love with him, and he was getting cuddles and scratches from our nurses every day.

Ginger’s tongue post treatment.