Mouth ulcers!!!! Arrggghh SUCH a pain, in every sense of the word!

A mouth ulcer is a break in the lining of your mouth. They can happen on your lips, tongue, floor of your mouth, inside your cheeks or at the gum line. Some of my patients are absolutely plagued with these and its something that patients contact me about regularly through my Facebook and Instagram accounts, so I thought I would give you my top 5 tips on preventing mouth ulcers occurring and treating them once they pop up.

Knowledge is power and first things first, we need to work out what kind of ulcer you have.

The most common type of ulcer is an apthous ulcer. You’ll probably feel one of these guys before you see them, with the area around where the ulcer is going to crop up feeling tender, swollen and even slightly numb. These ulcers usually last between 3-5 days but some whoppers can last for up to 10 days, they can form on their own, or in groups, or in multiple places in your mouth at the same time. As we will see in a minute, these ulcers are usually related to poor nutrition and stress, so if you’ve been partying too hard, eating rubbish and generally, as my mother would say, burning the candle at both ends, you’ll usually end up with an apthous ulcer. These are the main type of ulcers we will be looking at preventing and treating in this post.

These aren’t the only kind of ulcer that can form in your mouth, sometimes ulcers can be traumatic due to

Biting your cheek
Burning the inside of your mouth
A broken tooth
A rubbing denture
Having braces fitted

If this is the case, I would go straight to step 5 and contact your dental practice because while the traumatic source is there, the ulcer my not fully heal.

Always contact your dental practice if you’re unsure how long you’ve had an ulcer for, or if its been there for 3 weeks or more.

Ulcers can also appear for no reason at all and I like to class this group as ‘other’ sometimes these can be painful as conditions in your mouth can become ulcerated over time, sometimes they may not be painful, sometimes they can lie flat against the surface of your cheek, tongue or gum sometimes they can be more raised with a thicker border surrounding them. Either way you should be contacting your dental practice if you have an ulcer or a group of ulcers that have been present for 3 weeks or more. Get to know the inside of you mouth and check it regularly, its good to know what’s going on in there and when changes happen. Most things that you see in your mouth will not be sinister, but its better to be safe than sorry so any unusual changes please contact your Dentist.

So lets get going with my top tips for Apthous Ulcers! Remember if you have any questions at all about the above feel free to contact me.

1) Nutrition is so important.

Making sure you are getting enough Vitamin C is a key part of staying healthy generally, but a lack of Vitamin C is linked to mouth ulcers. Generally improving your diet and making sure you’re eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables will help prevent ulcers cropping up later. You can read more about the importance of Vitamin C in my blog post here.

2) Keep stress levels to a minimum.

Stress effects your immune system, which can lead to ulcers. Lots of patients experience more ulcers when they’re stressed out at work, studying for exams or going through personal problems. Usually, once the stressful event is over, ulcers tend to heal up and occur less frequently but if you are going through a stressful time, giving your body an airbag of eating and sleeping well will go a long way towards keeping ulcers to a minimum.

3) Check your toothpaste & mouthwash.

Some of my patients suffer really badly with ulcers when they use certain toothpastes or mouthwashes. This usually happens if the patient has a sensitivity to SLS a foaming agent that’s in a lot of toothpastes and mouthwashes (this happens to me) but they can just have an allergy to a mouth rinse like Corsodyl. If this happens the best thing to do is stop using the toothpaste or mouthwash if you have developed ulcers in your mouth since using for at least 2 weeks to see if the ulcers go away. If you start using the product again and they ulcers come back then there is your answer. Personally I use an SLS free toothpaste full time and there are lot of these on the market. You can see some of my favourite toothpastes here or check out my Toothpaste Tuesday reviews on my YouTube channel. You can find SLS free mouthwashes on the market, but if in doubt just leave the mouth rinse out.

4) Treat your ulcer.

So many of my patients will let an ulcer just ‘sort itself out’ and put up with pain and discomfort on eating drinking and speaking, sometimes for days. I always advise some sort of treatment. I think a product like Gengigel * with hyuleronic acid is great for ulcers as is the Perio Plus+ Focus gel * by Curaprox. I also like to recommend Iglu which you can get pretty easily over the counter, online and in some larger supermarkets. My top tip if you’re using a product to treat your ulcer is to gently dry the area with a clean, dry, non-fibrous cloth before applying the product as it will stick to the area better. You can also treat mouth ulcers with an antibacterial mouthwash if you don’t suffer from an allergy (or if a mouthwash hasn’t caused the ulcers in the first place), using something like Curaprox Perio Plus+ * with Citrox is a great way to help heal ulcers, just bear in mind that some antibacterial mouthwashes can cause staining. You can phone your dental practice or contact me for advice about this any time.

5) If in doubt, rinse with warm salty water.

I recommend warm salty water for EVERYTHING! Gum problems, after gum treatments, wisdom tooth issues, 24 hours after tooth extractions and mouth ulcers! This is something that you will pretty much always have to hand, its cheap and easy to use and….it works, it works for me and it works for my patients. Add a few spoonfuls of salt to comfortably warm water, rinse this around your mouth a few times getting to all the nooks and crannies. Spit out the salty water, definitely do not swallow, and repeat 2 more times so 3 times in total. You should do this 3 times a day, once in the morning, the afternoon and evening at a different time to brushing and you should do this for 3 days. Its the rule of 3 people!!

Thankyou so much for reading! Some people are more susceptible than others, but these methods are tried and tested and they work most of the time. Remember you should be contacting your Dentist or Dental Hygienist if