I suffered from painful mouth ulcers for years – then doctors diagnosed tongue cancer. There WERE warning signs, but I dismissed them

Mouth ulcers are, while uncomfortable, something most people ignore – and usually resolve naturally within a week or two.

But for Margot Blair, 62, from Dumfries, the sores that first appeared in 2022 lingered and kept returning over months, then years.

Despite this, as a non-smoker who goes to the gym five times a week and rarely drinks alcohol, she thought little of it.

Ms Blair certainly didn’t suspect anything sinister. ‘I just thought I got more than my fair share of mouth ulcers,’ she said.

But, by May 2025, the symptoms worsened. New ulcers appeared and her tongue became severely swollen, prompting her to see a dentist.

The pain became so intense it began radiating from her jaw through her cheeks and up her head, and her tongue felt increasingly enlarged inside her mouth.

‘My tongue felt too big for my mouth and very painful. I knew something was really wrong,’ she said. ‘At that point, I went to see the dentist.’

Eventually, tests revealed the devastating truth: Ms Blair was suffering from a form of tongue cancer known as squamous cell carcinoma.

‘I was in shock – no one wants a cancer diagnosis, and in your mouth is just not a pleasant place to have it at all,’ she said.

Ms Blair underwent a series of follow-up tests at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, including MRI scans, CT scans and biopsies.

Worse news was to come. The results showed the cancer had spread.

She underwent two rounds of surgery on her tongue, along with the removal of cancerous lymph nodes in her neck.

The treatment left her with a five-inch scar on her neck, speech difficulties and a permanently altered sense of taste.

‘Some people think that I might be deaf because of the way that I speak,’ she said.

‘I cannot eat anything sweet. If I was to eat chocolate – it tastes vile. If I eat ice cream, it tastes like eating a slab of butter. Everything is salty.’

Ms Blair then completed six weeks of intensive, targeted radiotherapy at the Beatson in Glasgow.

She said she would not wish radiotherapy treatment on her ‘worst enemy’, describing it as an extremely difficult process.

The treatment also caused her to lose 10kg, due to pain while eating and ongoing difficulties swallowing.

‘I am now four weeks post radiotherapy, and I would say my mouth is now 70 per cent there,’ she said.

‘The taste side is 50 per cent. But I don’t know when I am going to get the sweet taste back.

‘I lost all the muscle I had worked so hard for over three years at the gym. I had a good-toned body for 62. Now, I’m slowly retraining.’

Following her experience, Ms Blair hopes to raise awareness of the symptoms of mouth cancer that are easy to dismiss.

‘All through your life you will get ulcers on and off, and that is the problem because you just dismiss them,’ she said. 

‘Like most people, I had never heard of tongue or oral cancer as it is just never talked about, so I didn’t think ‘oh this isn’t right’. 

‘Also, the fact that they were lasting longer than two weeks, I wasn’t aware that this could be an issue.’

According to the NHS, mouth cancer, also called oral cancer, can affect any part of the mouth, including the gums, tongue, inside the cheeks or lips.

Anyone can get mouth cancer, but the risk increases with age. Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 66 and 70.

While it is not always clear what causes mouth cancer, risk factors include smoking, heavy drinking, sunbed exposure and having a weakened immune system.

Symptoms of mouth cancer can affect any part of your mouth and can include a mouth ulcer in your mouth that lasts more than three weeks, losing weight without trying and a croaky voice.

Regular dental check-ups are crucial. Persistent ulcers or changes in the mouth lasting more than two weeks should never be ignored.