Canker Sores - All the Time

mine are triggered by stress--I gargle with apple cider vinegar which sounds aweful and stings like crazy but they go away within a couple of days. it's always worked for me--

Hi J.,
I also get canker sores but have found if I use Herpicin -L at the first sign, very often they don't really manifest at all. It is in a tube like chapstick and easy to carry. Also for sores inside the mouth regular Pepto Bismol on a Q-tip applied to the sore neutralizes the acid and heals quickly. Both are readily available in most stores. It is usually stress that makes then pop out for me.

I'm suprised no one has mentioned B-12 yet. My diet was lacking in B vitamins big time. I tend to be anemic as well so when I started taking B-12 regularly I suddenly got better. No more canker sores and I'm not anemic as much. I really feel like I have to take too much but concentrating on taking a supplement and eating enough veggies helps.

My husband also suffers from canker sores, but ONLY when he uses Crest toothpaste. He prefers to use Viadent and gets along fine with it. When I worked in a dental office, our dentist would prescribe a concoction of 1/3 viscous lidocaine, 1/3 Pepto Bismal or Milk of Magnesia and 1/3 Liquid Benadryl. Your dentist or MD should be able to prescribe this also. It is used as a rinse before eating. Here at home I just mix 1/2 liquid Bendadryl and 1/2 Pepto and it seems very effective for him. There is a book that I would recommend called "Is This Your Child?" by Dr. Doris Rapp. She is a pediatric environmental allergist. She probably has some recommendations as to food allergies that may be triggering the canker sore response. (I've loaned my copy out so can't look it up right now) I know that most health food stores carry this book and many libraries also have it. Hope that this helps you help your son. Canker sores are just miserable.

My mom gets bad sores. She always takes Zinc for it. . . couldn't hurt . . .

The acidophilus will help a lot. It is basically the same as the yogurt so if he wanted to do the acidophilus instead of yogurt everyday it should work. Thats what worked for me when i was getting them. Good luck.

My husband used to get canker sores all of the time so he did some research and found that there is an ingredient in most toothpastes that contributes to it. Rembrant has toothpaste without this ingredient in it. I don't think that walmart carries it I think you need to go to Walgreens or Rite aid. The toothpaste says canker sore right on it. Our son was getting canker sores and big ones so we bought this for him and he doesn't have them anymore, but if he uses regular toothpaste he gets them. It is like 8 or 9 dollars a tube.

Hi J.,

I saw you have lots of replies already but here is a couple more ideas just in case.

I've taken Lycine (it's an amino acid) to heal canker sores. It comes in a tablet or capsule. YOu can get it from anywhere with vitamins and supplements. Maybe he could take it daily to prevent them.

I've also seen an ad in Body and Soul magazine for something called Canker Covers. It's supposed to heal them super fast. I've never tried them and I'm not sure where to get them. Try googleing in it and see what you get.

Good luck! Hope you find something that helps!

Hi J.,

I used to get them, too... and haven't in 6 years since I started taking Body Balance. It's something that he can take on a daily basis (and you can, too!) to help the body perform the way it's meant to (I also used to have PMS and chronic kidney and sinus infections and haven't had any of this in 6 years! I swear by the stuff! You can get it here:

http://tinyurl.com/agzsbp

Let me know if you have any questions. ###-###-####.

-A

Hi. I've suffered from the sores off and on since I was a kid, and I've found that they're worse if I eat too much sugar, especially chocolate. Also, it helps heal the sores if you dampen some baking soda with water and press it on the painful spots. It hurts like the dickens for ten seconds or so, but the baking soda helps lower the acid level where the sores are in the mouth, and they heal faster. Good luck.

I feel so bad for your son. My husband used to get them all the time too. Almost a year ago, we switched to using Melaleuca fresh mint tooth polish to brush our teeth. He recently told me he can't remember the last time he had a canker sore! If you're interested, I actually have a travel size available I could send you. Whatever you decide, good luck!

I try and eat yogurt once a day and take a chew-able vitamin C, and stay away from citrus, even juices. Got this from NPR and I have been going through a really stressful time and have only gotten one very small one. Good luck

I am really surprised that the person at the health food store did not mention probiotics. There may be some other thing that needs to be taken care of inside his body. Activia yogurt has probiotics in it and my kids love it. I also have a friend that gets a lot of cankers and he uses the whitening teeth wash from listerine.

Hello, my suggestion is to go to the heath food store again and see if they have Alum. It should be in a loose herb part of the store. You don't need very much at all. All you do is wet the tip of a finger, dip it in the Alum and put it on the canker sore. It tastes like bad baking soda. Just leave it on for a couple of seconds (or as long as you can stand the taste) and then go spit the spit, if you need rinse.

Alum is also something that is good for clotting a boo boo(geeze do I have young kids when I cant think of another word!) Its not something for every little scrape, but if they get a good sized one where you'd go through several bandaids, it would work.

Another use of Alum is to make homesteaders honey!! Oh do I like that stuff. You can make the honey with any flavors you want! Another shopping list for the health food store. You can either google "homesteader honey recipe" or go to www.recipezaar.com and search it there. I made lavender hiscubus honey. Mmmm, that was a good christmas present!

Good luck with the sores!
J.

Hi J.,

I got canker sores on a regular basis when I was a teenager. They were a total pain. I never found a real reason for them, but noticed that certain things I ate would make the problem worse, such as: walnuts and kiwi fruit, etc. I remember having them so bad once that the entire inside of my mouth was covered in them. I went to the doctor for those and (since I was lifeguarding at the time) they thought it may have been a reaction to heat stroke. They perscribed me a liquid ulcer medication for me to "swish" and "gargle" with. It helped and I used pepto bismal several times also. For me, it seemed to be a puberty thing and I deffinately grew out of it. I'm 30 now and haven't had one in at least 12 years. I hope your son finds some relief and that it isn't a lifetime problem. Good Luck!

lysine tablets work wonders for canker sore sufferers.

Hi J.. That sounds miserable! You might want to look at your son's diet. Usually canker sores are a sign that your acid/alkali balance is pushed toward the acid side. Eating more fruits, vegies, and drinking water helps make your body more alkali. Things like orange juice, red meat, and most grains push your body toward the acid side. If you can get at the root of the problem, maybe they wouldn't come back. A great website on diet and the acid/alkali balance is www.hollysdream.com. Go to the Health and Nutrition tab. There is also a great product made by the company that I work with called Taheebo. It is an antiviral so it helps to knock out the virus that causes canker sores. You can read more at www.mylifeforce.net/liverichbefree. Good luck!

A healhful diet is important, one with whole foods and without sugar. You might want to try oganic Raw Apple Cider Vinegar (like Braggs) to heal canker sores: Soak a cotton swab in Apple Cider Vinegar and press it against the ulcer. Repeat this procedure a couple of times throughout the day. Rinsing the mouth with Organic Raw Apple Cider Vinegar a couple of times each day to help relieve canker sores.

Also take probiotics (yogurt has probiotics that's why it's helping)> http://www.babybites.info/2009/02/24/probiotics-healthy-k...

Hi J.,
My daughter (16) has also had canker sores for about 11 years- ICK!! She gets hers from fresh fruit- she will eat yogurt if she can't pass up the first of the season berries and cherries. We have found that a mix of benadryl and mylanta 1/2 to 1/2 of each as a mouth rinse helps a lot.
Peace, T.

Hi J.,

I had the very same problem for about a year after I got married. I too used lysine as one of the other comments suggested. However, unlike her I hadn't been told not to use it all the time, so I did. It worked great! Then I started taking a multivitamin with Lysine in it and that works really well. I get sores very infrequently now as long as I continue to take my multivitamin.

Hope you find something that works for your son. Those canker sores are so awful!

Jaime,
I have suffered from canker sores for over 30 years. At some point I mentioned it to my regular doctor and she suggested Triamcinolone Acetonide Dental Paste (it's a prescription) that you put on at the first sign and much to my suprise it greatly reduced the inflamation and in some cases it was gone the next day. It's GREAT.
L.

I too have suffered from canker sors, but not as bad as your son, from the sounds of it. As a child my parents would have me gargle with salt water, dont know that, that solution worked so well. As an adult and doing my own research, I have found that using a styptic pencil (sp, not sure if is right, but you will find it in the shaving section, its a white stick, you wet it and dab it onto the open ulcer). It tastes absolutely horrible but it takes the pain away so I can eat food. Also I take Lysine when I get one, that seems to help as well, but you cant take that all the time. Another thing that has helped me, is watching what I eat. Tomatoes are high in acid, I avoid them as much as possible. With me it is trial and error on which foods are not good for me. But it is something to check out. I personally would rather change my diet than to have to take anything, but if I do, I try to stay as natural as possible. Good Luck!

I think vanilla works too.

Oh I wish I knew something that would cure them! My husband (well, really his whole family, but he's the only one I have to hear about it all the time!) gets them all the time too, and they're really bad like you were describing with your son. I found it interesting that when he was on antibiotics for pneumonia they went away, but of course we can't take those forever. One thing that I did find was that most of my husband's canker sores were actually being caused by him biting his lips in his sleep due to grinding his teeth really bad in the middle of the night. I woke up one night and heard it and saw his jaw going back and forth like a saw! So we got him a mouth guard and that helped take away a lot of the canker sores (and get rid of his headaches). Not a permanent fix, but it might help to lessen the amount that he gets. Good luck, and if you find something inexpensive that works then please let me know too!