Categories: Health

Oral thrush or Oral Candidiasis – fungal infection of mouth

Oral thrush or oral candidiasis is a common oral problem caused by a fungus named Candida albicans. It is a normal organism of mouth but sometimes when it gets favorable environment it accumulates and presents symptoms.

In patients suffering from it, creamy white patches, usually on inner cheek and tongue are found. Additionally, it can spread to the roof of the mouth, gums, tonsils, and back of the throat.

Oral candidiasis can affect anyone, but usually, it is seen in babies, older individuals, people with low immunity and denture-bearing patients. It can also be seen in patients who are on certain medications which lower the immunity of the individual.

It is not a very serious problem if you are healthy but can be a serious ailment in people with lowered immunity.

Symptoms

Initially, it does not present any symptoms but over a period of time, it may show the following signs and symptoms:

Creamy white patchy lesions on the tongue, inner cheeks, and sometimes on the roof of the mouth, gums, and tonsils.
Redness burning sensation in the mouth which may cause difficulty in eating
These white lesions are scrapable.
On scraping the lesion, bleeding spots can be seen
Redness, cracking and pain at corners of the mouth
In denture-bearing patients, there will be redness, soreness, and pain under the denture, also known as Denture Stomatitis.

In severe cases like in people suffering from cancer or AIDS, it can spread as far as the esophagus and result in difficulty in swallowing food (Candida esophagitis).

In infants and breastfeeding mothers

Unusually red, sensitive, cracked or itchy nipples
Shiny skin on the darker, circular area around the nipple

Causes

Normally our immune system fights with micro-organisms such as fungus, bacteria, viruses etc, but when it fails to fight back because of low immunity, the numbers of problem-causing microbes increase and these accumulate and result in oral thrush.

Risk factors