I have a canker sore on the inside of my lip. It’s been a mild winter, and this may or may not be the reason that I’ve had very few canker sores, but I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. So I only have the one canker sore at the moment, and it was just about all healed up . . .
UNTIL I chomped on it this morning while eating an apple. This resulted in much pain (owie owie owie!) from the bite itself (OWIE owie owie) and from the acidic apple juice hitting the newly-opened sore (OWIE OWIE OWIE!!!) and I ended up with a huge chunk of dead skin just dangling there until I bit it off (yuck!). Now it’s even more sore and nasty than it was last week, damnit!
This one is in a bad spot. I’d bitten it at least three times before, but I faithfully treated it with hydrogen peroxide and it was almost healed! But not any more! I suppose I’ll be enjoying it for another week. Argh!
So, damn canker sores, damn them straight to hell! Especially if they’re in a place you can’t help biting all the time. There’s no scientific explanation for the damn things, you know! No one can tell you how to avoid them! There’s no way to treat them that goes beyond the “folk” level of medical sophistication! Who is working on this problem? Huh? WHO? I’ll just bet that all the fancy-schmancy medical researchers all wasting their time on “deadly” diseases like “cancer” and “AIDS” and “juvenile diabetes.” “Ooooh, look at me, I’m a fancy-schmancy medical researcher and I’m trying to find a cure for Alzeheimer’s disease!” Screw you all! I want a cure for canker sores!
Not enough hatred can be spewed for these little sores of pure hell. After an extended episode with a total of six of the damned things earlier this year, I found a toothpaste that doesn’t contain sodium laurel sulfate and religiously use antiseptic mouthwash.
A simple search of GQ would give you the answer for this. I know you were just ranting and all but there is help out there.
Scientific studies have shown that switching to a tooth paste that does not have sodium laurel sulfate (SLS) as one of its ingredients will greatly decrease the number of sores that you will have. SLS is a foaming agent (detergent) that is found in most toothpastes. Rembrandt makes an SLS free tooth paste that I prefer over the others. You can also get one from Biotene.
When I couldn’t find any SLS-free toothpaste at my local drugstores, I went to the nearest Whole Foods, on the theory that someone opposed to pesticides might be opposed to SLS as well. I found some organic peppermint toothpaste that lacks SLS and tastes pretty good.
I’m right there with you, Podkayne. I just bit down on a bbq peanut yesterday, and got a large hole in my cheek for my trouble. I get canker sores all the time; I notice that regular toothpaste burns my mouth, and tartar control toothpaste makes the skin inside my mouth come off - I think there might be something to switching toothpastes after all. Oh, there’s a great thing for canker sores - it’s a kind of gummy, waxy stuff that you stick on the sore to keep the saliva and the never-ending probing tongue out of it so it heals faster. I find it at the drugstore - I can’t think of the name of it right now. It comes in a little tube, anyway.
I’m in luck—I live in an area that is quite dense with hippies and it’s pretty easy to find crunchy products. I hope that I can find someting without SLS but with fluoride, as many of the hippy-dippy toothpastes are fluoride-free. (I haven’t had a cavity in 18 years, but I ain’t takin’ any chances.)
Another vote for switching toothpaste. I used to get canker sores like subway seats get gum, and a couple of years ago after reading about SLS here I began using Jason Powersmile with Fluoride. Not a single canker sore since then. It’s been an absolute frickin’ miracle, I tell you whut.
If by any chance that’s the stuff in yogurt, I second this recommendation. I’m not normally prone to canker sores, but I once got a rash (ha!) of the little buggers all over and all at once. My poor mouth felt like I’d been rinsing with battery acid. My doc suggested the possibility of a lack-of-flora type thing (I don’t wanna gross anyone out, but my understanding was that this is similar to taking oral antibiotics and getting a yeast infection) and he suggested eating yogurt with active cultures. Three cartons of Yoplait later, I felt loads better and by the next morning all but the very worst of the sores were gone.
When I get them (a few times per year) I treat them with Zilactin. Before I knew about it, I’d be in oral misery for a week at a time, several times per year.
For me, the appearance of canker sores (mouth ulcers) is related to hormones and stress.
Being with my slightly mental family over the holidays plus trying to organise my up-coming wedding and sleeping in late (thus not taking my contraceptive pill at EXACTLY the same time every day) have combined to give me 5 of the bastards.
However, I’m looking on the bright side: I had a reaction to an antibiotic that gave me mouth ulcers ALL OVER my mouth, tongue and throat. I couldn’t eat or speak for about a week, it was not fun. I survived on raw eggs beaten up in milk and lost about 14 pounds. Anything that has cropped up since then is minor in comparison, so I can deal with it.
Having said that, salt water mouth washes and Bonjela (teething gel) help to numb the pain and heal them up faster.
The Rembrandt canker sore toothpaste still contains flouride (although it’s oddly scarce - places that sell the rest of their line will be mysteriously missing that one.) It’s more expensive than it ought to be but it’s totally worth it - I’m very prone to canker sores and since I’ve started the toothpaste (six months or so now) they’ve been MUCH rarer. I still get them when I travel and sometimes when I bite myself accidentally, but sometimes now I can nip myself and not get one. I’ll sit there and dread it for a few days but it won’t become a sore and it will heal just like it’s supposed to and it’s really the most wonderful thing in the world.
I hear Toms of Maine does have a SLS-free toothpaste, although I haven’t looked.
Yep, it’s the stuff that’s in yogurt. I take chewable tablets of it, as I cannot stand yogurt in any way, shape, or form, except for TCBY’s frozen delicacies, which sort of defeats the whole purpose. At any rate, I don’t know about canker sores, but acidophilus tablets have helped immensely with my yeast and digestive tract problems.
Lynn is completely correct. Live culture yogurt is one way of getting acidolpholus, as are chewable tablets, liquid versions, or capsules. In fact, sometimes it help to take a couple different methods, I have heard. Some women even douche with the stuff when they have a nasty yeast infection. I think that Lynn is right about TCBY- very tasty yes, but I doubt if it has much or any “live cultures”.
Note that the stuff also can help your pets, even.
irishgirl- it can even help with problems caused by stress or hormonal imbalance.
I took a history on a man the other day who came into our derm office complaining of almost constant and horrific canker sores. He said he had them about 80% of the time. He was worried that he might be have an immune deficiency.
Later I talked to the doctor and he said it may be a gluten allergy. Maybe some of you more severe canker sufferers might look into that.
Been suffering from one just this past week. Damn but they hurt something fierce! Today is the first day since it appeared that it hasn’t made me want to cut my lower lip off with nail scissors.
WhyKid had one last week, along with an incurable craving for salsa. The two don’t really mix well, do they?
Dad gave me a tip which really helped: alum powder. He had it in his spice rack - apparently it’s used in pickling. A little of this white powder on the sore three times a day, and it was gone in two days. WhyKid says they usually last about a week and a half for him, so this was a good thing.
I had no idea this was a problem for him, but his toothpaste does have SLS. I’ll be looking for a SLS and fluoride-free paste today. (He’s got fluoridosis, so no fluoride for this guy.)
Do you SLS avoiders need to avoid it in other products, like shampoos?
and it’s pretty easy to find crunchy products. I hope that I can find someting without SLS but with fluoride, as many of the hippy-dippy toothpastes are fluoride-free. (I haven’t had a cavity in 18 years, but I ain’t takin’ any chances.)