re: The bones (tori?) under my tongue freak me out

I mostly just visit for the comments and quick wit of the OT.

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My best friend has them, though, and they are so large that I can see them when she talks and sometimes, it even sounds like she has marbles in her mouth while she is talking because they take up room where her tongue should go.

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Wow! I'd be tempted to get them removed at that point, but I'm sure that is a painful healing process.

EDIT - Well shite. I just realized the very small hard bump on the roof of my mouth must be this. I thought it was an old boo boo or something. Its just a bump the size of like a BB

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They are called tori (multiple) or torus (singular).

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Uhhh, holy shite. The Google image search of "Tori bones" is fricking gross.

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That and a soft foot diet.

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Think I'd rather have the bat soup than a foot diet.

I always pictured you as a guy with no teeth.

One of my favorite procedures to do is tori removal. Generally not too difficult, not a ton of post op issues, pts are always happy they are gone.

We need dentists posting more often!

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One of my favorite procedures

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marsupialization of ranula

One of the more interesting procedures I've learned about through my profession.

Those google images tend to be worst case scenarios. Most tori are on the smaller to medium side and, like a lot of you in this thread, most people aren't even aware they have them or of their existence unless they are told they have them. I've had a few patients who had unbelievably large ones and had them removed. Their end result is worth the discomfort of the removal and they cannot believe how much room is present in their mouth without them. Word of caution, though - after removal, the tissue in the mouth looks like raw hamburger meat until it's healed. And they do have a tendency to grow back, slowly, over time.

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Nope. Simple procedure with same healing timeframe and appearance as most periodontal surgeries. Other than the sutures and some minor inflammatory response, you mostly would not even know that a surgery has been done. 

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Yep. I've seen many patients who were in the process of recovering from tori removal and there was definitely the appearance of trauma to tissues at the sites of the tori, as would be expected after a fairly extensive oral surgery. The sites looked like raw flesh to me, even with suturing. And the patient was DEFINITELY aware that surgery was done. After they were healed, though, every single one told me that the recovery was very uncomfortable, but worth it. And I'm also aware of the etiology of tori and exostoses, as a clencher/grinder myself, with small tori.

Perhaps you had patients tell you otherwise regarding recovery. That doesn't mean that my experience and visual observation was incorrect, it just means we had different patients and have different eyes.

Thanks for your contribution to the discussion.