Forum menu
Anyone have any ingenious remedies to get rid of mouth ulcers? Currently gargling salt water.
And why do they appear? How to stop them recurring?
Cheers
IME stress causes them.
Bonjela is my friend. Two days of that and they’re done.
I only ever seem to get them when stressed with work. So avoid a stressful job would be my advice!
could try a Chlorhexidine based mouth wash
Bicarbonate of soda straight onto the ulcer. Stress can cause them, eating load of pineapple and dental problems.
Avoiding tomatoes, tomato ketchup, etc certainly helps in stopping them getting worse. not a cause though.
stop telling lies
Corsodyl mouthwash gets rid of them pronto for me.
And iglu stuff is great for covering up a nasty one.
Ultimately though for me, as above no stress means no ulcers. All the classics such as excercise diet and general well being techniques and they don't occur.
Rinsing mouth with salty water every few hours for a few days.
I used to get them after binge drinking diet coke for days on end.
Being run down causes them for me - stress, booze, over doing it in general.
A warm salty rinse works best for me, as soon as it's coming on. Very Salty warm water, rinse for 2/3x30 seconds a couple of times a day.
What you need is Adcortyl in orabase. It’s a steroid paste and reduces swelling. It’s not available here since 2008 but alternatives can be got on the internet. I have a stash.
For me it is also related to stress.
HTH
As above it's normally stress, or diet. I get them when stressed. Our son went through a phase of them in his teens, but they went away when he started eating a bit better - more veg in particular seems to help.
Vitamin B12 and or folate deficiency.
Or just an horrendous diet.
Or just an horrendous diet.
I wouldn't have put it quite that strongly, but anecdotally I used to get them semi-regularly. After starting taking a multivitamin supplement I haven't had one in years. (Correlation ≠ causation, I know...)
Also anecdotally, one of the worst things I found which pissed them off was chocolate.
And iglu stuff is great for covering up a nasty one.
Second this, I have better success with Iglu than Bonjela. It is a bit of an odd sensation though
especially if you get some on your teeth and you feel like you haven't brushed them in a year.
I very rarely get them anymore but if I do it's salt straight on it. Eye watering swearing for a few seconds and then it stops hurting for a quite a while.
Some people claim toothpaste with sodium lauryl sulfate can cause them. I can't comment whether this is correct, but may be worth considering.
IIRC I've had two in my life, the 2nd lately and didn't just pass.. so a trip to the doctor/hospital. They said mine was harmless, I was informed mine was probably due to a sweat gland blocking up & I did have an outpatients to have it removed, but it cleared itself up.
Iglu stuff was awful but did better with it than anything else I tried.
The adcortyl paste feels the same as the Iglu stuff but with added steroids.
Anbesol works as an instant relief, it must have a mild anaesthetic in it and numbs the Pain for a while.
Mouth ulcers can be a proper misery. I've got a couple at the minute which is unusual. The only thing that's changed is the fact that I've run out of peroxide which I use as a mouthwash. So you could try that.
No idea what causes them. Probably a combination of stress, mechanical abrasion. Ie, chewing your face in your sleep cos stressed. And wrong toothpaste, bad oral hygiene.
Stress or being run down can cause them. Also I find a few days before my period, similarly to other symptoms of increased progesterone (hair loss, vivid dreams etc).
Bonjela and keeping good oral hygiene (cleaning teeth after every meal i.e. 3 times and using mouth wash and floss) can fix them in a few days.
Another Iglu fan here.
I find you have to smudge it on to get it to stay put.
I tend to get a couple of them every few months.
I asked my dentist about them once and he said that they are not a dental problem and reflect a problem elsewhere in your body.
Adcortyl was the utter dogs dangles! Awesome stuff. I find corsydl mouth was very effective now.
Eat less fried, bbq or oven baked food.
Drink plenty of water.
Boil some beetroot and drink the water (once a week but not more).
or
Make some pork/chicken moli (Chinese called it white carrot) soup*.
*Soup in oriental style is watery and Not in creamy thick form.
Choose either beetroot or moli but not both and drink it once a week.
Stress causes them for me.
Tried all the pastes and goo going, now I just use Corsodyl mouthwash a couple of times and it sorts them no problem.
for those who use Corsodyl its worth noting this stuff uses the exact same active ingredient at a considerably lower price (a chemist put us on to it as they have iirc matching iso numbers or something)
p/s: sleep more and rest.
scrub with toothbrush
apply neat TCP
Get a good nights sleep
Salt, neat, just dab some on with the end of your finger, stings a bit.
multivits here too
also not getting rat-arsed seems to help 🙁
The problem with gargling salt-water is you have to spit it out.
Gargling vodka on the other hand 😀
This is available over the counter and has the same active ingredient as adcortyl in orabase.
It’s the most effective thing for numbing sore ulcers, much better than corsodyl, salt or iglu/ bonjela.
Nothing actually heals an ulcer except time and patience. It’s the equivalent of a graze on your skin but the mucosa in the mouth works differently. Ulcers should heal in 1-2 weeks
Some people just “get” ulcers ( recurrent aphthous stomatitis) often stress or hormones can increase their frequency. The majority of the rest are caused by trauma from food or toothbrush. Some viruses cause them also.
There are a number of more unusual things that can cause them. If you get regular ulcers associated with a white patch in the mouth or if you ever have an ulcer that isn’t healing after two weeks, you should get a dentist to check it out. A common presentation of oral cancer is a (often painless ) non healing ulcer.
I found whitening toothpaste made me far more susceptible to ulcers.
has the same active ingredient as adcortyl in orabase
^ that's benzydamine; Adcortyl was (is) triamcinolone
Anbesol works as an instant relief
Initially, I misread that as ‘Anusol’…
Good point, fuzzy memory as it hasn’t been around for ages,
Benzydamine works in a similar fashion though and is available now
I occasionally suffer with them quite badly. I can get 2 or sometimes 3 at the same time and the worst ones can take 7-10 days to go. They can be really painful.
As above, stress can cause them but the biggest trigger for mine is when I’m physically run down and fatigued (normally through riding / training).
It's diet for me, if I'm away biking or hiking for a few days, and as such eat high calorie energy dense food and a lack of frit, then I'll be guaranteed to get one in the coming days.
Most recent cause of lots for me was the Walkers Max Jalapeno and Cheese crisps. But ultimately stress is the biggest factor, when I sat my GCSEs I had loads in my throat, it was a 'joy'!
I've suffered with episodic mouth-ulcers for years, some of them have lasted 2-3 weeks and they can flare up to the size of a 10p piece - pretty grim. They get so painful that they wake me up at night. usual trigger for me is stress (and usually work related.) Tired all sorts of of stuff but the most effective has been the Bonjela Complete+ - the little bottle that you paint on. Catch them early enough and reduces them to small and manageable and gone in a week.
Lack of b12, Iron, and foaming toothpastes (i.e. most of them, look for Sodium Lauryl Sulphate free) can be exacerbating factors.
The mouthwash linked to by Creepers is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory the Adcortyl paste one is a Cortisoid anti-inflammatory. Not sure of the difference but the paste does go on the area required and provides a protective cover like the igloo paste.
https://bnf.nice.org.uk/treatment-summary/oral-ulceration-and-inflammation.html
Broadly speaking, they contain different types of anti inflammatory agents, one is a steroid and one isn’t.
Steroids are very effective anti inflammatory agents but their use is usually prescription only.
In this case, orabase is very effective but you need to buy off the internet or get your go to prescribe one of the sprays mentioned in the BNF link above. You need to make your own mind up how you feel about buying prescription stuff off the net.
Benzydamine Hydrochloride ( difflam ) is widely available over the counter and honestly works really well.
https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/benzydamine/
Actually I’m gonna qualify that by saying there are other topical steroid creams you can still buy over the counter for things like exzema but my point remains, that you need car ordering medical products from abroad on the internet.
Also interesting to Note that the withdrawal of orabase from sale was apparently a commercial decision by the manufacturers