Start with acidophilus - it’s in live-culture yogurt, which explains awldune 's experience.
Then, as Edward The Head and Podkayne mentioned- change toothpastes. I recommend Biotene toothpaste.
L-Lysine is a good treatment for Cold/Herpes sores. Dunno if it helps with canker sores. Canker sores are little mouth ulcers- nearly always on the inside of the mouth. They hurt. Cold sores are a herpes outbreak, usually on the outside of the mouth- they "tingle’ more than hurt.
Anything that boosts your immune system- Vit C, Zinc & Echinichea- should help with either.
Ok, I know this sounds weird, but it works. Very quickly I might add.
Seriously. Dunno why, don’t care why, just care it works. Actually if you can get it (and stomach it since its a very strong taste) Kefir is even better.
I am not kidding here, when I’m stressed, certain foods set off some seriously NASTY cankers in my mouth and I have tried all the treatments mentioned above with none being as effective as plain old yogurt. (When I say nasty I mean nasty. The last bad one was literally the full length of my tounge along the side. Looked like I had tried to lick a hot iron or something. Very nasty and world of hurt. Got rid of it in 2 days. )
My dentist recommended Vitamin E. I held a cottonball with some liquid Vit E it directly on the sore for a few minutes, and then covered it over with some Kank-a liquid treatment. They usually disappeared in a day or two.
A couple of “old-time” remedies are: alum powder, a styptic pencil, and clove oil. All of these are relatively inexpensive. The clove oil is a topical analgesic used by dentists forever. At my pharmacy, it is less than $2.00.
Ok, not a solution for the morning, the drive to work, the workday, OR the drive home but I’ve found a tiny sip of beer kills the pain for a few (3-10) minutes. Doesn’t need to be much. Extra points for going to a crowded bar, nursing your beer and visible swishing it in your mouth.
Do you have TCP in the USA? The really stinky antiseptic you can gargle with?
That works well, either as a diluted gargle or neat applied with a cotton bud (Q-tip), it stings at first, but it does numb the pain and although it smells awful it will make it heal faster. Here it would be about $2 for a bottle.
Strong salt water gargles are also helpful, especially if you use hot water, it’s really not that bad, pain-wise.
Bonjela/Oragel and all those teething gels work really well, perhaps your local pharmacy has a cheap generic brand?
And for the last bloody time, canker sores/mouth ulcers are NOT caused by a virus. They are associated with stress, hormonal fluctuations, trauma to the gums and mouth, allergy and auto-immune diseases.
If you still have it, try this. I’ll bet my next year’s subscription fee against yours that it works within 36 hours.
I’m assuming you’ll be honest. And if you do it, just say thanks and we’ll be even.
Put regular table salt on it. Just put a teaspoon or so of straight salt on the cankor 2-4 times over a period of 36 hours or so. More if you can handle it. But get a “treatment” in every 6 hours or so.
It’ll send you through the roof. It fucking hurts! But, trust me. It takes care of cankors.
This is not medical advice. I haven’t done all the doctory things to you that I’d do with a patient, like history and examination and billing.
Though it is not a treatment or cure for the underlying condition, a drop or less of clove oil will provide cheap, immediate relief that may last for hours. In the meantime, to fortify yourself for the trip to the supermarket or pharmacy (clove oil isn’t always easy to find everywhere), try tucking a whole or freshly crushed clove onto the sore for a a few minutes. It’s more dilute, but you should begin to fee results within a minute, if your cloves are fresh (I’ve never tried pre-powdered cloves, because I never have them in the house; they lose too much of their volatile oils to be useful for anything, including cooking)
Clove oil is a dirt cheap oral anaesthetic [a couple of bucks for a few hundred drops). Some people say it also works for mouth burn from spicy foods, but you’ll have to evaluate that for yourself. It is used in many “ultrahot” sauces to modulate the burn, but various people interpret the numbing differently.
Omg, thank you so much for that site! For the longest time I thought I was a disease-ridden freak! My parents thought it was just something that Asians get (I’m Asian btw), and since I got them all the time, they thought it was something that was wrong with me. I think I got them all the time because I kept eating foods that irritated my gums/tongue.
I got outbreaks pretty frequently until I started rinsing with Listerine everyday. I also cut back on the chips, crackers, basically anything that irritated my mouth. And if I ate them, I was very gentle with how I ate them. Oh, and rinsing with Listerine may sting a little, but I really think it makes them less severe and makes them heal faster.
**
DOWN WITH CANKER SORES!!**
I’ve had them for year and years. I currently have 3. I’ve tried many things, amosan, salt, dehydration. A lot take just about as long as it takes for your body to heal them on its own.
My current and so far most effective treatment is mouthwash and a q-tip. You wet the Q-tip with your mouthwash and apply it to the sore. It burns a bit but 2 treatments a day for 3 days to a week usually gets rid of them. Faster if you get them early.
Salt and the like seem to work by drawing water out of the sore, so that it heals faster. People say that honey hurts less :shrug:
Personally, I use salt. Yeah, it hurts for a bit, but it goes numb afterwards… and if you gargle with salt solution, it doesn’t even really hurt all that much.
Here’s various recommendations from The Doctor’s Book of Home Remedies (1990) from Prevention magazine (it’s what doctor’s say they do when they don’t feel like going to the doctor:
Carbamide Peroxide (found in Gly-Oxide, Amosan, and Cankaid as of the time of the book’s writing)
Potassium Chlorate
OTC medications with benzocaine, menthol, camphor, eucalyptol, and/or alcohol in a liquid or gel.
Orabse or other mouth pastes.
A wet tea bag (black, 'cuz it has tannin)
swish with hydrogen peroxide diluted 1tbsp to 1 glass of water, or Folamint mouthwash.
Alum (such as from a styptic pencil)
swish with Mylanta
swish with a tea made from goldenseal root
Avoid coffee, spices, citrus fruits, nuts high in arginine (walnuts, etc.), chocolate, strawberries, and vigorous toohbrushing.
4tsp or more per day of plain yogurt with active cultures of Lactobacillus acidophilus
Ear wax (I think this actually worked for me one time)
I gotta tell you guys, I’ve tried everything on that list when I get mine (except ear wax, I’ll give you that) - I’ve done the lysine, the acidophilus, straight salt, the stuff you buy in the crazy kit that makes the film over it, whatever you got. I honestly don’t think they did anything but make me feel powerful, like putting a thermostat in somebody’s cubical but not hooking it up to anything.
On the other hand, about a year ago I switched to the Rembrandt canker-sore toothpaste (SLS-free) and have only had maybe three since then, and two of them when I was travelling, when I always get them. Now I’ll absolutely try any wacky “garaunteed” remedy people come up with when I get my next one, because they hurt like hell and mine last forever, but none of the previous remedies have done a damned thing for me. (Well, I don’t know about the earwax.)
I have also experienced major relief from SLS-free toothpaste. The other trigger I avoid, which I rarely see mentioned, is monosodium glutamate. I was able to reduce canker sores by about 75% by avoiding that, which meant reading labels on all processed food, and the switch in toothpaste eliminated the remaining few I still got. I never really did find an approach to pain relief that worked for me, so I’m very glad I figured out how to prevent getting them…
