Health Tips | Pain Relief from Canker Sores

 

What is a canker sore? It is a sore which pops up on the inside of your mouth in the soft tissue area or at the base of your gums. They are usually small and shallow lesions. These sores are not contagious and will not show up on your lips like cold sores. However, they are extremely painful and will make talking and eating difficult. Most canker sores go away on their own in a week or two...but who wants to put up with a painful sore in your mouth for that long?

Now for the purpose of this post: I have had a nasty canker sore for about 4 days. I have been using my regular "cures" but they haven't been working like they normally do. I always brush my teeth at the minimum twice a day, when I wake up and when I go to bed, I use antiseptic mouth wash after I brush my teeth and usually at least one other time during the day. When I have sores I put peroxide or salt on them (see below for details on using these things). This store was just so stubborn that nothing was working. Last night I was finally desperate enough to try straight white vinegar... disgusting as anything I can think of or name, but man did it help!

Last night my canker sore was bigger than the end of a pencil eraser and was so painful I didn't want to eat or talk or drink water. Plain water! Today it is just a tiny bit smaller, but it is not painful! I plan to put vinegar on it again twice today to knock this thing out. I'm just so glad to have found something that works for this thing. I get them quite often because of my medicine, but they have never been as bad as this one. I hope that this tip helps any reader who might need this pain relieving tip!

What To Do
1 teaspoon of white vinegar

1. Pour the vinegar right on the area that is infected.
2. It is going to burn like crazy but it helps! Also you will make funny faces and feel like spitting it out right away but don't!
3. Keep the vinegar in your mouth on the sore for at least 30 seconds.
4. Rinse your mouth out as much as you want. You may even want to brush your teeth with water to get the nasty, gritty, squeaky feeling off your teeth.

Other tricks that might work for you:
~Table Salt. Get your finger wet with tap water, stick it in the salt then press it directly on the infected area. This will be a killer burn, but it should give some pain relief. Nothing as good as the vinegar did though!
~Antiseptic Mouth Wash. Any time you have sores in your mouth you should be using mouth wash. This helps kills germs and will help the sore to heal faster while preventing further sores.
~Peroxide. Pour straight peroxide on the infected area. This will burn a little but it does kill germs so the decision is up to you. This usually works just fine for me, but this didn't help with the sore I'm dealing with right now.