Canker sores are basically an ulcer of the lip. I read about the SLS link on the SDMB a couple years back…and switched to Rembrandt. At the time, Rembrandt did not market that toothpaste as helping to prevent Canker sores…they just called it their “natural” line. I note that they now play up that angle.
Hrrm the two doctors who gave me the prescription used the terms interchangably.
All I know is that the drug stopped em dead 
I hear ya CRorex, my wife’s doctors were no help at all. Our dentist was actually the only person who knew anything about canker sores. And of course if you try to do research on the web 90% of the hits you get are trying to sell you some nostrum or other, many on the flimsiest of evidence. The trouble is that nobody really seems to know what causes them, and what works for some people doesn’t work for others, and so on…
Also, cold sores do sometimes appear inside the mouth, and can be confused with canker sores. But most of what I’ve read about them says they aren’t caused by a virus. I tend to this theory myself, as it seems to me that that afer many years of close association with this woman, if they were caused by a virus, I should have them too. She’s always had them, but was able to control them with L-Lysine, until two years ago. Now we’re trying to figure out what changed in her life at that time. I’ve finally convinced her to go to an allergist now though. (She’s incredibly stubborn.) So anyway, we’ll see.
I hear ya CRorex, my wife’s doctors were no help at all. Our dentist was actually the only person who knew anything about canker sores. And of course if you try to do research on the web 90% of the hits you get are trying to sell you some nostrum or other, many on the flimsiest of evidence. The trouble is that nobody really seems to know what causes them, and what works for some people doesn’t work for others, and so on…
Also, cold sores do sometimes appear inside the mouth, and can be confused with canker sores. But most of what I’ve read about them says they aren’t caused by a virus. I tend to this theory myself, as it seems to me that that afer many years of close association with this woman, if they were caused by a virus, I should have them too. She’s always had them, but was able to control them with L-Lysine, until two years ago. Now we’re trying to figure out what changed in her life at that time. I’ve finally convinced her to go to an allergist now though. (She’s incredibly stubborn.) So anyway, we’ll see.
Canker sores are usually caused whenyou get a little cut in your mouth and eat something that really irritates it. Then your immune system creates the sore while trying to keep the cut clean. Chocolate tends to cause more cankers than anything else.
Rembrandt makes many types of toothpaste so you have to be sure to get the canker sore reduction type. It will say something about canker sores on the package.
Haj
True wisdom is acknowledging you don’t know anything.
One of the wisest men I ever knew was my dentist/resident genius and he basically told me that no one really knows what causes kanker sores. They are NOT related to herpes but the symptoms are similar. Naturally there have been studies done but not to the extent where we can actually explain what causes the little buggers down to the molecular level. Only that it seems that some drugs work for some people, etc. etc, not eating chocolate for some works, blah blah, drinking this will reduce your outbreaks, blah blah. Clearly, its some type of allergic/immune response your body has to “something” and your susceptibility and reaction is probably determined by genetics. Everyone seems to have a different story to their outbreaks. There is probably no universal solution. In my case, I always get kanker sores when I have bad nutrition. I’m in college so whenever I go hungry or eat poorly for a few days, they pop up. Never had that chocolate or stress thing happen to me.
As for my tips, eat properly, and keep your mouth really clean(it reduces the pain for me)…oh, and brush your tongue; the bacteria on it can prolong the sore and make it more painful.