I am in desparate need of a cure for canker sores. I am constantly getting 7 or 8 sores at a time, and nothing that I’ve tried so far makes them heal any faster or prevents them.
I’ve talked to both my dentist and doctor about it, and neither of them were able to provide me with anything useful, other than reassuring me that this is a problem about 20% of the U.S. population deals with. I figured if so many people also have this problem, then surely someone can suggest a remedy.
Anbesol (spelling) works to ease the discomfort. Hey, fyi, check out the penis massage lotion discussed earlier!
Hey, aren’t canker sores really Herpes? Also, they ARE contagious. So, say you have a girlfriend who has them but you don’t have an outbreak. You kiss her, you get them. Hers go away. You kiss. She gets them. Back and forth. It has happened to me. GET RID OF HER!
I used to get canker sores all the time and someone told me that they can be related to a poor diet. I started eating more fresh vegetables and fruits and now I rarely get them. But that’s only what worked for me. According to this site , there can be a variety of causes and possible treatments–I hope you find something that works well for you because I know how annoying and painful they can be! Good luck!
Someone here is confusing cold sores with canker sores. They are very different.
Someone on these boards had a horrible problem with canker sores. Do a search and see if he found any relief. His sounded WAAAAY worse than yours. Many, many, many sores at the same time.
Whenever I get them I swish hot salt water around in my mouth, it hurts a little at first, but not much. This seems to take care of them within a day or so. Good luck! Margo
Yes, I confused canker sores with cold sores. Well, not sure if I was wrong, as I put it in question form. But I still believe they are contagious, speaking in the previous example, which was a personal example. I got away from that girl, haven’t gotten one since!
Ah…been there…did that…and got lot’s of advice and some great tips to help:
Keep a clean mouth, usually from brushing and water…& mouth rinses if you like.
Rinse with salt water as a prevention…
Rinse with salt water as a treatment, and this is the best advice. The salt can act on the surface and actively kill the little buggers causing the sore. It is one thing you can do to fight the war. Will help prevent any from being infected as well…will help prevent spreading.
Eat well. A good diet does wonder for the immune system, and these sores are just examples of things the human immune system has alot of trouble with. It can eventually handle the sores, but it’s too slow for comfort and the sores can spread by the time most immune systems deal with them.
Here is a remedy that I have used since the early 70’s. Rinse your mouth 3 times a day with full strength Glyco-Thymoline. Drink 4-5 drops in 4oz of water before going to bed. The sores will stop hurting almost immediately and will heal quickly.
Glyco-Thymoline is made by Kress & Owen Company. It may not be available at your regular pharmacy, but they should be able to order it. Since you won’t want to wait, I have had the best luck finding it at hospital pharmacies. Also, it is available on-line through, Baar.com
I just read the OP and I happen to have beaten the perpetual canker sore situation, so take whatever I say as living proof, not as science: I have gone from 1 or 2 cankers sores a month to 1 in the last 1.5 years, since I changed a few things.
Most toothpaste causes the lining in your mouth to dissolve, exposing your mouth to acids and such that cause sores. Brush with toothpaste as little as possible and brush as quickly as possible. Also, don’t eat right after brushing. Also, choice of toothpaste matters, I switched to Colgate sparkling white with baking soda and peroxide and this has made the most difference. A stark contrast as soon as I changed.
Wash your mouth out with pure water after every meal or snack, and in addition whenever you possibly can. That assures that no acids sit in your mouth.
I know how crappy these suckers are. I can only imagine 8 at a time. Just try these things, they worked for me. Good luck.
Press onto the sore and hold it there for as long as you can stand it. (Actually, it gets easier to bear the longer you keep it there.)
It will hurt, but it works for me. I told a co-worker about it, and she swears by it. When another co-worker got a canker sore, the first co-worker told her about the remedy. She tried it when she got home. She said the sore was gone the next morning.
I get them much less often now that I drink 16 oz of milk a day (compared to no milk before). Besides the spontaneously-appearing ones, I used to have a 100% sore-forming rate for cuts in my mouth – with the milk in my diet, it is down to about 25% of cuts form sores.
From my experiences w/these damn things, I really think they are primarily related to diet and stress.
Ok, this is going to sound crazy, but I swear it happened. I once got mouth cancre sores at least twice a year. In fact, it got to the point that I could successfully predict when they were going to set in. And sure enough, one would fester right on time no matter how clean I kept my mouth or whatever.
About two years ago, my sister (who, like myself, is a big fan of herbal healing) told me about intestinal parasites and the problems they cause. Cancre sores were not on her list, but other subtle ailments that I could identify with were on the list. She told me how to self-treat for parasites using herbs (including a ticnture of worm-wood and black walnut hulls) and assured me it was harmless. So, I tried it, thinking what the heck - I had a cat w/ fleas and one sure-fire way of getting worms is from flea-ridden animals. Besides, she claimed most people get worms when they’re kids and have them all their lives.
The self treatment took about a month - just a couple of drops of the liquid and a couple of herb capsules per day. And lo and behold, in addition to curing my chronic lethargy, I have never had a cancre sore since then. (As a matter of fact, I’ve only had one cold since then.) And I have accidentally injured my inner cheek while chewing or sleep-chomping a number of times. Now, I can’t say this is scientific, but it worked for me and if my kids get them, they’re going to get de-wormed.
For information about intestinal parasites, just use a search engine. You’ll find lots of herbal-healing web sites.
I also used to be a chronic canker-sore sufferer. I have cut down their incidence significantly with several measures. Some of these have already been mentioned herein; I’ll repeat a couple of them in describing my own regimen.
I changed toothpaste. In reading the literature, some people report that a common ingredient in toothpaste, sodium lauryl sulfate, apparently dissolves the protective lining of the mouth and increases frequency of canker-sore attacks. Note that this product can be hard to find; SLS is in just about every major-brand toothpaste on the shelf (apparently it contributes to that foamy property that convinces us the toothpaste is working). I found a brand I liked at a granola-and-macrame health shop, but it’s like six bucks a tube.
I rinse regularly with Mylanta-like liquid. Along the lines of zoid’s recommendation of baking soda and Fuel’s mention of acids, I find that the more acidic my mouth, the more likely I am to get canker sores. Rinsing with Mylanta or a knockoff helps neutralize this.
When I feel one starting to form (the tender, slightly warm spot is a giveaway), I heavily coat it with Kanka and keep it that way, refreshing the coat, for a couple of days. This is a combination product you can get at some drugstores; it contains benzocaine to kill the pain, and it also seals the spot against whatever in the mouth is attacking it. While the cause of the sores is medically undetermined (from QtM’s link: “the exact etiology of the lesions has yet to be identified”), I suspect, from my own experience, that something in the chemical environment of the mouth is interacting with the oral mucosa to create the sore, and therefore sealing off the affected area allows it to heal without interference.
I’ve also been experimenting with taking a lysine pill as a dietary supplement. Some medical sites suggest this can help, but the results are anything but solid. I figure it can’t really hurt, though. (From QtM’s link: “Studies of lysine supplementation are preliminary and equivocal.”)
As a result of the above, I’ve gone from regularly occurring sores, sometimes several at a time (including, most painfully, on the bottom of my tongue and on my uvula), to only three in the last eight months, two of which were small, and one of which never actually “broke,” as I was able to intercede and eliminate it before it actually opened up into the telltale white-ringed ulcer.
Oh, by the way, while nobody really knows what they are or what causes them, they probably aren’t contagious, either, as far as what I’ve read.
A method that I’ve found to work for my sores is dipping a Q-tip in hydrogen peroxide and then scrubbing (and I mean scrub the living daylights out of that thing!) the sore, then rinse my mouth out. It kills the pain (often for hours or days) and it seems to speed up the healing process. Plus, it’s super cheap and easy to do, if you can stand the pain of scrubbing the sore.