“Hurts when I eat” being the simplified version, of course.
TMI WARNING
Once, when I was 14 and dumb, I needed to take aspirin but had no water. I put one aspirin on each side of my mouth and let them dissolve. :eek: The aspirin started eating away at my skin; I realized this before it was entirely too late, but not in time to prevent some damage.
Permanent damage. I can still feel the depressions on the inside of my cheeks; the right one is particularly deep.
Sometimes when I eat, I get this stinging pain inside my mouth. For a long time, I thought the sensitive areas were the gaps where my wisdom teeth used to be. But I couldn’t figure out what foods to avoid, or at least be careful with. There seemed to be no pattern: sometimes it happened with spicy food, sometimes not, sometimes citrus, sometimes not, sometimes very bland foods, and sometimes not.
This evening, I was in Sav-On, purchasing ibuprofen, and my eye caught the aspirin nearby. Click…click…click, and I made the connection.
I must have exposed nerve endings. That would explain the inconsistency: it’s not a matter of which foods, but whether or not they encounter the sensitive area.
Of course, that still leaves me with a condition that occasionally causes me to grab my lower jaw and whimper quietly. As Snoopy once said, “Make one mistake, and you end up paying for it for the rest of your life!”
This is why it will cause ulcers. Buffered Aspirin was invented by one of the founders of the Bayer corporation after normal aspirin had all but destroyed the stomach of his severely arthritic father.
Unless you’re way younger than I think you are, something that happened at 14 should have healed by now – and shouldn’t be causing pain. Particularly something in an area so well-vascularized as the mouth. I’m not discounting the possiblity entirely, but it just doesn’t sound right.
Have you discussed this with your doctor and/or dentist? Have you tried OraBase? OraBase is a protective and soothing paste that is used for ulcerations of the mouth. If OraBase is ineffective the problem is likely something else, otherwise you may be right. http://www.aaaskindoctor.com/orabasepaste.html
There may be a cure or pallative solution for you – I hate to think of you suffering a salsa-free life!
Per Danalan it’s unlikely your nerve endings would be “exposed”. There may be some underlying nerve damage that is heat or cold sensitive but any nerve endings would have been covered over by the healing process.
Any damage you may have done when you were 14 will have healed by now.
Unless you’re only 15 in which case it may take a little bit longer.
Also, and competent dentist would have done a cancer screen on you every several years, this includes looking at the inside of your cheeks. He would have noticed, and asked about any odd injuries related to your cheeks.
And lastly, I suggest going to a dentist or an oral surgeon.
There could be a number of different things, ranging from an infection in the jaw to tooth damage (you may have an exposed nerve in or near the gumline that is triggering a pain response in a nearby area --this has happened to me)
[ul][li]I’m sticking my tongue into the corners of my mouth right now…rglegarg…and I can definitely feel patches that are “lower” than the surrounding areas. [/li]
[li]I’ve been aware of this all along, and they’re definitely where the aspirins were.[/li]
[li]I’m 32 years old.[/li]
[li]I had my wisdom teeth out when I was 22.[/li]
[li]I honestly can’t remember when I started having these pains.[/li]
[li]They’re very arbitrary. I can eat salsa…heck, I can eat anything. It’s not a specific food that sets it off, as I said in the OP. I don’t really know what does set it off.[/li]
[li]I’ve never had a dentist mention this. OTOH, I’ve never mentioned it to one. [/li]
[li]I should.[/ul][/li]
Thanks for the advice. I won’t mess around with OraBase just yet, unless a dentist tells me to. This is not a daily problem, or even a weekly one. It’s just that when it does happen… :o