I am currently reeling from one, and I don’t understand where this little white dot came from and why it can cause so much pain.
In: Biology
I don’t think there’s a clear-cut explanation for what causes them, aside from the fact we know they’re not contagious, and not caused by the same virus as cold sores.
But they’re painful because the areas they develop on are the ones with fairly thin and delicate skin/mucous membrane and tons of nerve endings.
I do know that if you’ve got the nerve for it, a hard-bristled toothbrush can make quick work of them.
I can’t explain it so won’t try. But if you have trouble with them, you might benefit from using toothpaste that doesn’t have Sodium lauryl sulfate as an ingredient. I’ve always been prone to them, and they suck because saliva is acidic and makes it hard to heal open sores. After reading about SLS I changed toothpaste and the frequency went from one every 3-4 weeks to maybe one a year. It was a really dramatic drop.
I’ve not tried it but one of my old roommates got them a lot and swore by alum powder to heal them faster. It’s a cooking/baking spice that you can get at your grocery store. He’d mix it with water to make a paste and then put it in the sore a few times.
They are a kind of ulcer, but it’s unclear what exactly causes them: lots of things, including vitamin deficiencies and too-sour foods, can cause them. They hurt a lot because they’re on the surface of your skin where a lot of nerve endings are, like how a paper cut hurts even though it’s very small.
Protip: a regular-ass laser pointer aimed at the sore for ~30 seconds can [help with pain and make it heal faster](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680689/), if you can’t or don’t want to use Kanka or Oragel.
Do you take omeprazole? It’s a common side effect.
Lack of sleep causes them for me. I don’t know if its because my immune system is screaming at me to go to bed or what but I’ve consistently gotten them when laking proper sleep for several days.
I don’t know all the details, but a cause I’m aware of is eating uncooked tomatoes, which causes them for me.
It’s actually quite common for nightshade foods in general to cause cancurs.
Some of the common ones are tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, peppers, and tobacco. Like I mentioned, though, I don’t get them when I eat a nightshade cooked only raw, but some do get them even with cooking.
My wife figured out that I was B12 deficient from my diet, so I started taking B12 vitamins and havent had canker sores in a long time, i used to get them at least once a month.
Others have touched on what causes them but as a long time sufferer of them I recently discovered mouth ulcer patches on a trip which stick to the ulcer and coat it with medication whilst protecting it from your teeth and soft food (hard food will rip it off very painfully I discovered).
I had the worst breakout I’ve ever had on this trip and I think at one point I had 8 ulcers. It was so painful and every time I healed one with salt and water or whatever, another 2 would appear.
I discovered these patches in a local drug store, put a patch on each one overnight (the ones at the back of my throat were difficult) and in the morning they had almost all entirely healed. Did it once more and they were all gone and I could enjoy my trip.
I went back to the drug store and bought 25 boxes because the only solutions in my country are numbing agents or saltwater. They’ve worked every time since.
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