Good For You

Nothing serious or strange about canker sores, right?  Everyone gets them.  They’re an annoyance and painful, but we can easily forget about them until its time to drink or eat and then the pain can sting so much it wells up the tear ducts.

Well … here’s the deal.  What is totally normal suddenly became very bizarre to me today because I seem to have a progression of canker sores popping up in my mouth.  At first it was just one, and then two, and yesterday there were three and what seemed to be the beginnings of a fourth and then today … number 5 came out!

I don’t know if the Listerine I’m using is making it worse or making it better.  What I do know is that this is definitely stress related because I haven’t been this stressed lately in a long time … not let me take that back.  I was this stressed only a couple of months ago and then for the past couple of weeks have been similarly stressed and the stresses continue onto the next 14 days.  So yeah, definitely something to do with stress weakening my immune system.

In the meantime, I googled and I researched on why this apparent “family” of canker sores.  Turns out that yes, it seems to be stress related and that twice as many women as men get them. Doctors think that may be due to the difference in male and female hormones, especially because women often get them during certain times in their menstrual cycle. Other research suggests that using products containing sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), a foaming agent found in most toothpastes and mouthwashes, can be associated with canker sores- how about that?  I’m going to go check out my toothpaste after I post this because I just got a new one recently and have been using cheap hotel toothpaste for the past week- could that be the culprit?

Dietary deficiencies, such as not getting enough iron or vitamin B12, may also contribute to some cases of canker sores.  Hmmm … maybe I should pop some in, but let’s look at this one at a time.  What stuff is in your toothpaste?