 Hello everybody, Andrea Mayesca here with Dental and Mobile Hygiene. So let's talk about oral cancer screenings, what they are and how I do them and how you can also check yourself at home as well inside the mouth because a lot of people may want to but they don't really know what to look for and I don't know about you but I don't typically look inside my mouth under the tongue every day even I don't and I know that I should. So we do say to do a quick oral cancer screening on yourself, you know at least once a week and what you're watching out for are lumps, bumps, anything that was not there before. So I'm going to share a PowerPoint with you guys, the picture is kind of blurry but this was the best one that I could find so I apologize about that. So when I clean pretty much anybody's teeth, you know it doesn't matter how young or how old you are I do check everywhere inside the mouth for anything that's not normal. And surprisingly though too is you may have things inside your mouth that might look a little bit weird but they're completely normal for some people so I know what to watch out for. It does help too because I have been a tutor for dental hygiene students and dental assisting students since I was 19. So I do teach oral pathology a lot so I have seen a little of everything and I know how to teach oral pathology so I know what to look for. But I'm just going to kind of help you guys out a little bit too so you want to look. So if you guys can look at the picture here, you want to look under your lip. You want to you know check under the lip to to just see if see if anything hurts see it see if anything's uncomfortable. You want to look inside your cheeks under your tongue on the sides of the tongue as well. You want to look on the root of the mouth. You want to look in the tonsiler area and the best way to do that is to open and say ah that's the best way to look in that sort of tonsil type of area. And I did say that you want to look under the tongue and you want to look on the side of the tongue as well. So what are you looking for? You're looking for any type of like lump bump anything that's not supposed to be there. If it's red, white, black, brown, it's probably not normal. It may not be cancer but it's just something that you have to watch out for. Now if you're eating a hot pizza or pretty much a hot anything you could. I'd say cut or burn the inside of your mouth where a lesion might appear that's you know red or more pink or more white than usual. So that's obviously not cancer but if you see something like that think okay did I eat something too hot or too crunchy. Oh yes I did the other day so then that's probably from that you know. So you have to almost think about things like that too whereas if you're looking inside your mouth and see a red lesion of some kind and then say oh when did that happen? I didn't eat anything hot the past couple of days that I can think of nothing crunchy so oh you know what I think I'm going to keep an eye on this. The rule of thumb is if you see a lump lesion anything keep an eye on it and if it doesn't go away in two weeks let us know so then that way we can have a look at it and then say yes that's normal or that doesn't look normal you should have that looked at by a specialist. So that's kind of the rule of thumb if it changes size or if it changes color keep an eye on that too and these days you know we take pictures of everything so the nice thing is is that we can easily take a picture inside of our metals these days I mean if it's too far back that might be a little bit harder but if you're not sure have somebody look at it and I see these things all the time you know I saw a lump on a patient's tongue just last Thursday and I said you know what I'm not concerned about it it looks normal to me but still keep an eye on it if it changes you know shape color size let me know and wait a good two weeks if it does not go away come back in and let me have a look at it you know so you do have to be careful because if it is cancer you want to have it looked at sooner rather than later because the nice thing is if you if you catch oral cancer early enough then you can usually catch it treat it and that's it so whereas if you wait and wait and wait and just you know hope it's nothing and then three years later it's like okay now the lesion is like large it's taking up half my tongue maybe I should look at it by then that's obviously not a good sign they might have to take away half the tongue I hate to say it but that's what happens sorry guys let me just stop sharing my screen here because all of you saw that so this is just something that you can do at home and this is what I do on everybody it takes 20 seconds that's it but for a lot of these areas this isn't something that you would normally think to check in your in your own mouth right so that was just kind of a recap on how to do a quick oral cancer screening at home you know it doesn't matter how young or how old you are plus some types aren't painful so even if you do have say a lump on the side of your tongue just because it's not causing you pain it doesn't mean it's not a bad thing it doesn't mean that it is a bad thing but you you want to be careful you know keep an eye on it so I hope that helped if you guys have any questions please let me know anytime and I will see you guys in the next one thank you so much for watching