Brian,

Thanks again for your words of encouragement. I have been back and forth on this emotionally. I will go weeks feeling confident and strong enough to handle any outcome. During these times I feel as though I could handle the fight with an optimistic approach. I felt okay after my CT consult when they said the CT was clear. I still had my concerns but figured they knew what they were doing. Then the symptoms came back and I sunk back into this. It's tough because I'm typically a very optimistic person but I haven't been given any reason to be. Noone can give me an alternative as to what this could be and all of my symptoms point to this. I made an appt with an oral surgeon for tomorrow morning. It is just a consult but will at least give me another shot at some sort of direction. It will give me some more information to take to my otolaryngologist next week. The weirdest part about all of this is the inconsistancy. 2 years ago, I started getting this blister in the soft palate (the back top of my mouth) It would swell up and then burst after a few days. It seemed to happen whenever I would eat or drink certain things. I went to my doc who sent me to an oral surgeon for a biopsy. He didn't even do the biopsy because when he took a first look at it, he said that it was a blocked salivary gland and there wasn't anything he could do that it would work out on it's own. I was very relieved but irritated. I got them in several other areas of my mouth during the course of the next 2 years but they would just come and go. This one would always pop up in the same spot. The funny thing is, after 2 years, this stopped happening at the same time that the tongue thing started up. This comes and goes as well but doesn't seem to blister, as far as I can tell. It does seem to be more swollen at certain times. Its never swollen during the night or when I first wake up. I can reach back and see and feel the ones on my tongue..they are about the same color as the rest of my mouth and feel like sacks or something...smooth round sacks. The one, if it is the same thing, further back in my throat below my jaw I cannot reach or seem to feel. The thing that really bothers me is that no doctor has ever done a laryngoscopy (I guess that is what it is called). My ENT inserted something into my nostril that allowed him to look in and at the back of my throat. He simply relied on that CT scan and I don't think that was wise. I'm sure this specialist will do more. And to give my ENT some credit, my throat simptoms had subsided by the time the CT consult came so he really didn't have any reason to do any more and he might have done a laryngoscopy if I was still feeling bad. I'm sorry to keep on and on about this it's just that I've been looking for an outlet like this for months now and I appreciate that you know my fears and will listen to me. I'm driving my wife crazy and it is only scaring my mom. One other thing to note, I've noticed that when I grit my teeth on that side, I hear a crunching sound and a popping sound when I open my jaw, only on that side. I asked my ENT about TMJ as my mom had that and he said no. I do still have my wisdom teeth and they haven't been bothering me. Oh well, I've rambled long enough. What was your first symptom?