We asked the drs about HPV when my son first was diagnosed because my Mom had read a few articles about the link. My brother Jim had a sore on the left side of his tongue that was actually dark green in color and extremely painful. My son Christopher had a sore on the side of his tongue that ended up splitting the tongue open so that it looked like it had been fileted by a knife. It was also extremely painful. Even with my brother being diagnosed with the cancer and passing away, the doctors didn't want to take it serious. We got the run around for a while until they found out he had ear pain also.