How to treat a ranula

When the mucoproteins, which are secreted by the salivary glands are accumulated in one closed formation in the mouth, it can cause the growing of one kind of formation called ranulas on the surface of the mucous membrane. The ranulas are most likely to appear beneath the tongue and because of some injury. Sometimes they can even disappear on their own and are not among the serious health problems. But, the problem is that the ranulas are prone to come back and can be very annoying and could cause difficulties during the processes of chewing.

Non-invasive treatment

Although for this condition the surgery is more common option there is a less aggressive way to deal with ranulas. Especially if there are several affected spots by ranula, the steroidal medications are prescribed to be applied directly on the surface of the formations. These steroids have a beneficial characteristic of preventing the return of ranulas. It is of course applied more than once at some intervals unlike the treatment with the gama-linoleic acid. This treatment is not so effective, since a lot of the patients experienced another outbreak of ranulas after the first intervention. So the wiser solution is to treat the cause of ranulas.

Surgical treatment

This type of treatment is more popular simply because it is far more effective. The most common intervention is the removal a ranula, which can be followed by the removal of some nearby salivary glands in order to avoid the risk of the condition occurring again. Nevertheless, this problem usually tends to happen again if only the content of a ranula (which is called mucin) is sucked up.

But, since the removal of the whole ranula is very risky if it is rather big, the mentioned procedure of sucking up the contents is the better solution. However, this procedure is the most effective in all children because their tissue can regenerate fester. And it is done with applying certain fiber onto the affected spot, which will have an effect similar to a sponge on water.

There are other surgical procedures which are all based on making the tissue insensible, such as electrocautery (with instruments heated by an electric current), cryosurgery (by freezing) and ablation or vaporization with laser. Those procedures are still more effective than the treatments which involves injecting the botulinum toxin A or a drug against streptococci.

However, the risk of the comeback of ranulas is the lower when the simple procedure of making the incision and removing the liquid contents from it is performed, but it is still better to remove the entire formation and the associated salivary gland. After the surgery the diet based on avoiding the solid foods and cigarettes must be followed.