{"id":145586,"date":"2026-02-23T11:30:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T11:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vale50plus.org\/clone\/i-suffered-from-painful-mouth-ulcers-for-years-then-doctors-diagnosed-tongue-cancer-there-were-warning-signs-but-i-dismissed-them\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T11:30:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T11:30:45","slug":"i-suffered-from-painful-mouth-ulcers-for-years-then-doctors-diagnosed-tongue-cancer-there-were-warning-signs-but-i-dismissed-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vale50plus.org\/clone\/i-suffered-from-painful-mouth-ulcers-for-years-then-doctors-diagnosed-tongue-cancer-there-were-warning-signs-but-i-dismissed-them\/","title":{"rendered":"I suffered from painful mouth ulcers for years – then doctors diagnosed tongue cancer. There WERE warning signs, but I dismissed them"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mouth ulcers are, while uncomfortable, something most people ignore \u2013 and usually resolve naturally within a week or two.<\/p>\n

But for Margot Blair, 62, from Dumfries, the sores that first appeared in 2022 lingered and kept returning over months, then years.<\/p>\n

Despite this, as a non-smoker who goes to the gym five times a week and rarely drinks alcohol<\/a>, she thought little of it.<\/p>\n

Ms Blair certainly didn’t suspect anything sinister. ‘I just thought I got more than my fair share of mouth ulcers,’ she said.<\/p>\n

But, by May 2025, the symptoms worsened. New ulcers appeared and her tongue became severely swollen, prompting her to see a dentist.<\/p>\n

The pain became so intense it began radiating from her jaw through her cheeks and up her head, and her tongue felt increasingly enlarged inside her mouth.<\/p>\n

‘My tongue felt too big for my mouth and very painful. I knew something was really wrong,’ she said.\u00a0‘At that point, I went to see the dentist.’<\/p>\n

Eventually, tests revealed the devastating truth: Ms Blair was suffering from a form of tongue cancer known as squamous cell carcinoma.<\/p>\n

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\"Margot <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Margot Blair, 62, from Dumfries, is raising awareness of the subtle signs of mouth cancer after she missed her own symptoms<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Margot's <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Margot’s symptoms included white lesions on her tongue and painful mouth ulcers that lasted weeks\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘I was in shock \u2013 no one wants a cancer diagnosis, and in your mouth is just not a pleasant place to have it at all,’ she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Blair underwent a series of follow-up tests at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, including MRI scans, CT scans and biopsies.<\/p>\n

Worse news was to come. The results showed the cancer had spread.<\/p>\n

She underwent two rounds of surgery on her tongue, along with the removal of cancerous lymph nodes in her neck.<\/p>\n

The treatment left her with a five-inch scar on her neck, speech difficulties and a permanently altered sense of taste.<\/p>\n

‘Some people think that I might be deaf because of the way that I speak,’ she said.<\/p>\n

‘I cannot eat anything sweet. If I was to eat chocolate \u2013 it tastes vile. If I eat ice cream, it tastes like eating a slab of butter. Everything is salty.’<\/p>\n

Ms Blair then completed six weeks of intensive, targeted radiotherapy at the Beatson in Glasgow.<\/p>\n

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\"Margot <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Margot is pictured while in hospital for radiotherapy.\u00a0The treatments have left her with problems with her taste, a five-inch scar on her neck and speech difficulties<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

She said she would not wish radiotherapy treatment on her ‘worst enemy’, describing it as an extremely difficult process.<\/p>\n

The treatment also caused her to lose 10kg, due to pain while eating and ongoing difficulties swallowing.<\/p>\n

‘I am now four weeks post radiotherapy, and I would say my mouth is now 70 per cent there,’ she said.<\/p>\n

‘The taste side is 50 per cent. But I don’t know when I am going to get the sweet taste back.<\/p>\n

‘I lost all the muscle I had worked so hard for over three years at the gym. I had a good-toned body for 62. Now, I’m slowly retraining.’<\/p>\n

Following her experience, Ms Blair hopes to raise awareness of the symptoms of mouth cancer that are easy to dismiss.<\/p>\n

‘All through your life you will get ulcers on and off, and that is the problem because you just dismiss them,’ she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

‘Like most people, I had never heard of tongue or oral cancer as it is just never talked about, so I didn’t think ‘oh this isn’t right’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Also, the fact that they were lasting longer than two weeks, I wasn’t aware that this could be an issue.’<\/p>\n

According to the NHS, mouth cancer, also called oral cancer, can affect any part of the mouth, including the gums, tongue, inside the cheeks or lips.<\/p>\n

Anyone can get mouth cancer, but the risk increases with age. Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 66 and 70.<\/p>\n

While it is not always clear what causes mouth cancer, risk factors include smoking, heavy drinking, sunbed exposure and having a\u00a0weakened immune system.<\/span><\/p>\n

Symptoms of mouth cancer can affect any part of your mouth and can include\u00a0a mouth ulcer in your mouth that lasts more than three weeks,\u00a0losing weight without trying and a croaky voice.<\/p>\n

Regular dental check-ups are crucial. Persistent ulcers or changes in the mouth lasting more than two weeks should never be ignored.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mouth ulcers are, while uncomfortable, something most people ignore \u2013 and usually resolve naturally within a week or two. But for Margot Blair, 62, from Dumfries, the sores that first…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2026\/02\/23\/10\/106598389-15584153-Margot_Blair_62_from_Dumfries_is_raising_awareness_of_the_subtle-m-23_1771842176004.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-news","category-recentpost"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2026\/02\/23\/10\/106598389-15584153-Margot_Blair_62_from_Dumfries_is_raising_awareness_of_the_subtle-m-23_1771842176004.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-08-23 11:30:45","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vale50plus.org\/clone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vale50plus.org\/clone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vale50plus.org\/clone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vale50plus.org\/clone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vale50plus.org\/clone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vale50plus.org\/clone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vale50plus.org\/clone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vale50plus.org\/clone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vale50plus.org\/clone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vale50plus.org\/clone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}