Key Symptoms of Mouth Cancer to Watch For

9. Ear Pain

A mouth cancer patient may experience ear pain as a manifestation of their progressing disease. This symptom is the result of a mechanism involving the glossopharyngeal nerve or the ninth cranial nerve. The glossopharyngeal nerve runs from the brain stem inside of an individual's skull to the back of the throat, portions of the ear, and to the tongue. This nerve is responsible for giving an individual sensation in these regions. However, cancer that develops in the mouth can cause parts of this nerve to become compressed or even cause damage. The result of this malfunction is a misfiring of pain signals to the different branches of the nerve, including the one that runs to the ear. This symptom is most common in individuals who have cancer at the base of their tongue. The nerve compression often results in a sensation of ear pain that can radiate from the ear to the cheeks and around the jaw. Some patients describe this sensation as a painful feeling of fullness in their ear. This symptom of mouth cancer only usually occurs in one ear, is persistent, and does not typically produce any hearing loss. The ear pain may become worse when the individual chews, coughs, laughs, swallows, talks, or yawns.

10. Unexpected Weight Loss

Unexpected weight loss is indicative of an individual being affected by mouth cancer. There are numerous ways mouth cancer can cause someone to lose weight unexpectedly. Weight loss occurs when an individual's energy balance shifts from neutral or positive to negative. A negative energy balance means the individual is burning more calories than they are consuming. The mouth, tongue, jaw, throat, and teeth are all vital tissues that play a different role in the mechanism of eating food. When a malignancy in the mouth grows and causes pain or problems with the mechanical aspect of eating food for one or more of these tissues, the patient cannot consume an adequate number of calories. Mouth cancer almost always causes an individual to experience a decrease in appetite. On top of those factors, cancer cells themselves multiply quickly and need calories and nutrients even though they have no functional purpose in the body. Cancer cells can use up a significant portion of calories in addition to the calories being used by the healthy cells of the body. The affected individual is often unable to eat enough to keep up with the caloric and nutritional demand of their body, causing them to experience weight loss.