HEALTH: 'Black hairy tongue'

A few years ago on a trip to Singapore, I had packed Pepto tablets and took a couple each night before bed, as we'd been doing some adventurous eating. One morning, I woke up and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, only to discover my tongue had turned black. The whole tongue. I put it back into my mouth. Shut my eyes. Was I dreaming? Eyes open. Tongue out. Still black. I ran out into the living room to show my friends. We quickly got on the Internet and, within moments, in a frenzy of hypochondria, we'd diagnosed me with a potentially lethal case of "black hairy tongue" (a distinctly non-lethal ailment caused by bacteria in the mouth that can result in discoloration and sometimes a thick coating on the tongue). Also, apprently, a band by the same name. Distressed, and imagining what lay in store for me once I was hospitalized in a foreign land with this exotic and certainly deadly disease, I went back to the bathroom and absent-mindedly picked up the Pepto bottle. I began reading the label, just to take my mind off my predicament, when I came across a side-effect warning that went something like this:

"In some patients bismuth subsalicylate may cause dark tongue and/or grayish black stools. This is only temporary and will go away when you stop taking this medicine."

I picked up my toothbrush and began to brush slowly. Then, more frantically. And, as I saw the black fade off my tongue, I began to laugh. I would live to see another day after all! Hooray!!! Oh, we had a good laugh over THAT one!

I hope this little story will save you the stress of thinking you've contracted a rare tropical disease if you should ever encounter this Pepto side effect. Incidentally, Pepto has a nice travel-advice page on their Web site .